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THE  BEDELL  LECTURES,  1891 

HOLY   WRIT 

AND 

MODERN  THOUGHT 

A  Review  of  Times  and  Teachers 


BY 

A.  CLEVELAND  COXE 

BISHOP    OF    WESTERN    NEW-YORK 


'  No  book  can  be  written  in  behalf  of  the  Bible  like  the  Bible  itself.' 


NEW-YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

}i  West  Twenty-third  Street 
1 802 


Copyright, 

E.  P.  BUTTON   &  CO. 

1892. 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


TO  THE  RT.  REVEREND  FATHER  IN  GOD, 

GREGORY  THURSTON  BEDELL,  D.D., 

THIRD    BISHOP  OF  OHIO. 


My  Venerated  Brother:  To  you 
I  dedicate  these  Lectures,  with  feelings  of 
tender  fraternal  regard,  thanking  God  that 
you  and  your  amiable  consort  survive  to 
watch  successive  products  of  the  Lecture- 
ship of  which  you  are  co-founders.  May 
those  which  I  now  lay  before  you  prove 
acceptable  in  some  humble  proportion,  as 
those  of  my  predecessors  have  been  in 
such  high  degree. 

Here,  amid  the  shades  of  Kokosing,  in 
the  house  so  long  your  home,  and  where 
you  once  so  hospitably  received  me,  I  have 
enjoyed   the   hospitalities  of  our  younger 


4  DEDICATION. 

brother  In  the  Episcopate,  to  whom  you 
resigned  your  cares,  and  who  has  entered 
into  your  labours  with  energy  and  with 
marked  abilities  for  his  great  work.  Need 
I  say  how  constantly  your  name  and  that 
of  Mrs.  Bedell  have  been  upon  his  lips  and 
those  of  his  family  and  his  guests,  as  every- 
thing about  us  has  suggested  some  grate- 
ful remark?  As  I  looked  over  the  scene 
from  my  windows,  in  the  kindly  light  of 
the  ''summer  of  All-Saints" — the  em- 
bracing river  far  below,  the  woods  around 
still  heavy  with  their  foliage  in  autumnal 
colours,  and  the  opening  which  discloses  the 
distant  spire — or  when  I  heard  the  chiming 
bells  send  forth  their  music  as  a  call  to 
prayer,  I  have  felt  that  your  spirit,  as  well 
as  your  personal  history,  is  here  enshrined 
in  meet  memorials.  Long  may  it  be  so,  if, 
indeed,  the  world  itself  is  destined  to  any 
long  duration.  But  how  little  this  concerns 
us,  who  look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth,  and  who  cherish  a  trembling  hope 


DEDICATION.  5 

for  the  Master's  gracious  judgment  and 
award.  May  we,  with  all  those  who  have 
kept  the  Faith,  receive  together  an  abun- 
dant entrance  into  that  glory  which  shall  be 
revealed  through  our  blessed  Redeemer. 
Let  me  commend  myself  and  my  diocese 
to  your  prayers  and  benediction,  as,  my 
Rt.  Reverend  brother. 

Yours  in  Christ, 
A.  CLEVELAND  COXE, 

Bishop  of  Western  New  York. 


KOKOSING,  November  5,  1891. 


.  PREFATORY. 

These  Lectures  were  delivered  in  the 
chapel  of  Kenyon  College,  on  the  3d  and 
4th  of  November,    1891.     But  they  have 
been    subsequently    revised,   abridged    in 
some    portions  and  enlarged  in  others:   a 
measure  to  which  I  was  prompted  by  the 
recent  appearance  of  able  works  that  ren- 
dered  some   of   my   own   endeavours   less 
needful,  and  made  room  for  the  admission 
of  fresh  material  more  likely  to  be  useful. 
Three  sentences  which  I  borrow  from  Dr. 
Pusey's  learned  work  on  *'  Daniel "  might 
be  taken  as  mottoes  for  my  Lectures,  as 
follows :  (i)  '*  It  seems  to  be  almost  a  prin- 
ciple with  some  to  hold  what  is  assailed  to 


8  PREFATORY. 

be  uncertain.  ...  (2)  Rationalism  was  the 
product  not  of  the  attacks  on  the  Gospel, 
but  of  its  weak  defenders.  ...  (3)  No 
book  can  be  written  in  behalf  of  the  Bible 
like  the  Bible  itself." 

A.  C.  C. 

See-House,  Buffalo,  1892. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE   I. 

PAGE 

Modern  Thought 1 1 


LECTURE    IL 
Higher  Criticism 68 

LECTURE  IIL 
The  Highest  Criticism 128 

Notes 238-271 


HOLY  WRIT  AND  MODERN  THOUGHT. 


LECTURE  I. 

MODERN  THOUGHT. 

Christians  are  not  of  the  past  only. 
To  them  belong  all  time,  and  eternity  at  its 
end.  Since  Abel  reared  his  altar  and  wor- 
shipped the  Paschal  Lamb,  the  Christian 
Faith  has  been  visible  in  men  of  faith; 
and  ever  since  there  have  been  Cains,  pro- 
fessing a  rational  Deism,  but  denying  the 
atonement  and  rejecting  the  Lamb  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  In  our 
day  the  Cainites  boast  themselves  to  be 
"liberal  Christians."  They  are  free  to 
give  away  what  does  not  belong  to  them, 


12  HOLY    WRIT 

and  they  kiss  the  Christ  in  order  to  hand 
Him  over  to  be  crucified.  So  stands  the 
case  in  our  times,  and  "of  our  own  selves" 
men  have  arisen  "speaking  perverse  things." 
What  is  our  duty  in  such  a  crisis?  Let  us 
remember  that  it  is  no  new  peril ;  the 
Church  has  passed  through  fires  much 
more  terrible :  and  St.  Paul's  prescription 
still  assures  us  of  our  great  resource. 
"  Night  and  day  with  tears,"  he  reminded 
the  primitive  faithful  that  such  dangers 
should  arise,  but  he  rehearsed  his  own 
teaching ;  proclaimed  it  to  be  "  the  whole 
counsel  of  God,"  and  added  a  charge  to  all 
bishops,  whether  of  the  first  or  second 
order,  to  "  watch  and  remember"  what  he 
had  testified,  and  thereby  and  therewith  to 
"  feed  the  Church  of  God  which  He  hath 
purchased  with  His  own  blood."  Under 
such  instructions  I  stand  before  you  this 
day.  I  offer  no  apology  for  my  adhesion 
to  what  always,  everywhere,  and  by  all  the 
apostolic  churches  has  been  professed   as 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 3 

"the  Faith  once  dehvered  to  the  saints." 
To  Christians  I  address  myself,  to  build 
them  up  in  this  holy  Faith,  to  show  them 
that  they  have  no  cause  for  alarm  or 
anxiety,  and  to  prove  that  what  figures  as 
"  modern  thought  "  is  but  the  same  old  un- 
belief in  new  disguises,  while,  at  this  very 
moment,  the  activity  and  predominance  of 
truth  have  never  been  more  marked.  The 
phases  of  Christianity  in  our  day  are  most 
encouraging.  Even  the  press  arrayed 
against  us  is  doing  the  work  of  the  Apos- 
tolic Church,  for  what  it  successfully  assails 
is  not  the  Faith,  nor  the  Church.  It  is  old 
scholasticism  ;  it  is  Aristotle,  not  St.  Paul ; 
it  is  Luther  perhaps,  or  Calvin,  or  Laynez, 
the  three  fathers  of  modern  sectarianism. 
It  is  not  Athanasius,  nor  the  Nicene  Con- 
fession ;  above  all,  it  is  not  the  Scriptures, 
nor  the  Holy  Spirit  who  gave  them,  nor 
Christ  who  sent  Him  to  teach  all  truth  and 
to  abide  with  us  forever.  I  have  lived 
through  the  greater  part  of  this  century, 


14  HOLY    WRIT 

and  from  a  child  have  watched  everything 
that  concerns  the  Church  with  an  interest 
the  most  profound.  I  have  studied  the 
greater  issues  of  my  times,  and  to  some 
extent  have  had  a  share  in  their  workings ; 
and  when  I  compare  the  present  with  what 
I  recall  as  the  state  of  things  in  my  youth, 
I  feel  strong  and  hopeful — yes,  confident 
and  sure — that  truth  triumphs  and  will 
prevail.  I  recollect  what  German  thought 
and  scholarship  were  when  Schleiermacher, 
heretic  as  he  was,  began  to  rebuke  heresy 
and  to  shame  unbelief.  I  recall  what  An- 
glicans were  when  Hugh  James  Rose  blew 
the  trumpet  that  drew  Pusey  back  from 
Rationalism  and  started  the  great  Catholic 
revival  which  has  been  felt  through  all 
Christendom  and  which  has  made  the 
Anglican  Church  a  beacon-light  to  Greeks 
and  Latins  and  to  thousands  among  the 
Reformed  ;  extending  her  missionary  work 
over  all  the  earth,  and  giving  her  a  geo- 
graphical catholicity  which  even  Athanasius 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 5 

never  dreamed  of  as  a  possibility.  Ger- 
many itself,  in  our  days,  has  become  the 
ally  of  Nicene  orthodoxy:  her  presses 
burst  out  with  new  wine — with  the  out- 
come of  fruits  of  a  Christian  scholarship, 
which  more  and  more  is  of  the  pure  flavour 
and  of  the  essential  spirit  of  the  Gospel. 
In  a  word,  while  it  is  true  that  the  enemy 
comes  in  Hke  a  flood,  it  is  not  less  true  that 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  has  uplifted  a  stand- 
ard against  him.  The  Faithful  Promiser 
has  not  disappointed  us.  The  day  is  at 
hand  when  "  the  vile  person  shall  no  more 
be  called  liberal^  Let  us  ''contend  ear- 
nestly for  the  Faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints  "  :  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  will  accom- 
plish the  rest. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  am  not 
affecting  to  despise  the  forces  of  the 
enemy.  These  forces  were  never  so  re- 
spectable as  now ;  for  they  come  to  us  not 
only  in  sheep's  clothing,  but  with  much  of 
the  temper  and  external  character  that  is 


1 6  HOLY    WRIT 

borrowed  from  the  flock  of  Christ.  More- 
over, they  are  armed  with  weapons  that 
Christianity  has  put  into  their  hands;  for 
science  is  born  of  Christian  enhghtenment, 
and  has  never  existed  in  a  flourishing  and 
progressive  estate,  save  only  in  Christian 
lands  and  schools.  These  weapons  they 
turn  against  the  Queen  of  Sciences,  but 
only  by  feint  and  stratagem,  never  in  the 
fair  encounter  of  liberal  conflict;  for  he 
only  is  "liberal"  who  meets  us  with  fact 
for  fact,  and  with  logic  for  logic.  I  affirm 
and  will  show  that  such  "  liberals  "  as  cap- 
tivate the  popular  mind  rarely  tell  the 
whole  truth;  they  assume  what  is  not 
proved;  they  supply  ''missing  links"  by 
imagination;  they  sneer  where  they  can- 
not refute,  and  boast  of  victory  before  their 
field  is  won.  And  yet  among  those  who 
do  all  this  are  men  of  real  science  and  of 
mental  powers  the  most  astute.  They  are 
honest,  too,  for  they  first  victimize  them- 
selves and  are  captivated  by  their  own  wit 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  I  7 

and  ingenuity.  Besides,  they  have  on 
their  side  many  prestiges  of  a  period  un- 
exampled for  brilliant  enterprise  and  dis- 
covery, which  the  popular  mind  cannot 
but  wonder  at  and  admire  to  intoxication. 
When  physical  truths  are  demonstrated  of 
which  philosophy  never  dreamed'  before, 
how  easy  to .  assume  that  moral  and  spir- 
itual experiments  are  equally  sure  to  revo- 
lutionize the  convictions  of  all  men  and 
to  dethrone  the  Faith  of  ages!  Young 
men  catch  at  this  idea  and  adopt  it  prac- 
tically. Impatient  and  headstrong,  they 
inebriate  themselves  with  the  caprices  of 
the  moment,  and  imagine  that  it  is  a  brave 
thing  to  doubt,  to  reject,  to  cavil,  and  even 
to  blaspheme.  They  forget  that  it  is  he- 
roic in  such  a  crisis  to  say,  **I  believe"  ;  to 
stand  by  the  old  flag  and  dare  to  defend  it ; 
to  say,  "Under  this  standard  all  that  is  light 
and  truth  has  been  won  for  mankind,  and 
never  will  I  desert  it  while  there  are  yet 
battles  to  be  fought  and  many  fortresses  to 


1 8  HOLY    WRIT 

be  captured,  before  there  can  be  any  claim 
for  surrender  at  discretion." 

I  recognize  that  such  conflicts  are  be- 
fore us.  We  must  anticipate  surprise,  and 
wounds,  and  temporary  defeats.  Difficul- 
ties will  be  startling,  and  nothing  but  slow 
and  patient  investigation  will  overcome 
them.  Experts  in  physics  and  experts  in 
criticism  will  be  needed  to  match  and  over- 
match and  master  the  apparent  discoveries 
that  will  overthrow  the  faith  of  some.  So  it 
was  when  Copernicus  and  GaHleo  restored 
the  true  ideas  of  the  universe,  which  science 
for  two  thousand  years  had  stolen  away 
from  the  intellectual  world,  through  the 
most  marvellous  system  of  false  philosophy 
that  was  ever  framed  by  human  invention. 
In  alHance  with  processes  truly  scientific  so 
contrived  as  to  look  like  demonstration,  and 
which  solved  many  scientific  problems,  it 
was  yet  ''all  false  and  hollow."  Alphonso 
of  Castile  sadly  reproached  the  Maker  of 
the  universe  for  the   clumsy  work  which. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 9 

nevertheless,  as  a  man  of  science,  he  ac- 
cepted for  reahty.  It  was  science  which  fet- 
tered the  Church  itself  by  these  false  dog- 
mas; with  which  men  of  science,  emanci- 
pated by  Copernicus,  a  presbyter  of  Latin 
Christendom,  now  charge  the  Church  as 
at  fault,  because  the  court  of  Rome  anath- 
ematized the  true  science  and  persecuted 
Galileo.  But  when  was  the  court  of  Rome 
authorized  to  speak  for  Christendom?  Or 
when  did  the  Church  Catholic  ever  dogma- 
tize in  such  matters?  I  say,  then,  just  as 
faithful  men  were  troubled  when  the  Chris- 
tian priest  Kopernik  restored  truth  and 
prostrated  false  science  which  scientists 
had  maintained  for  ages  In  the  teeth  of 
what  Pythagoras  had  taught  and  even 
Cicero  had  theoretically  stated,^  so  now 
great  scientific  truths  ^  will  seem  to  shake 
the  spheres  above  and  the  earth  under  our 
feet,  but  will  lead  to  deeper  study  of  Holy 
Scripture,  and  will  bring  forth,  out  of 
1  See  Note  I. 


20  HOLY    WRIT 

Scripture,  "  things  new  and  old,"  harmo- 
nizing both  and  confirming  all.  He  is  only 
half  a  believer  who  is  afraid  of  anything - 
that  can  be  proved,  no  matter  by  whom ; 
no  matter  where,  in  heaven,  earth,  or  the 
spaces  beneath  the  earth.  One  thing  is 
proved  beyond  conjecture,  and  has  sur- 
vived all  assaults  of  philosophic  unbelief, 
and  that  is  the  revealed  knowledge  and 
wisdom  of  God,  and  of  Christ  who  is  the 
Rock  of  Ages.  This  the  Christian  knows, 
and  on  this  he  is  planted,  come  what  will 
and  prove  what  men  may.  They  will 
prove  many  things  which  appear  to  contra- 
dict this  theorem  ;  but  be  patient.  Known 
.truth  cannot  conflict  with  any  known  truth. 
If  there  be  conflict,  it  is  because  there  is 
a  lie  somewhere,  and  we  Christians  know 
where  the  lie  is  sure  to  be  found.  Give  us 
time,  and  it  will  be  exposed.  Meantime, 
"none  of  these  things  move  us."  We 
**  know  whom  we  have  trusted,"  and  we 
know  what  we  have  intrusted  to  Him.      I 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  21 

profess  before  God  and  man,  that  all  that  is 
demonstrated  in  what  is  called  "  modern 
thought "  is  to  me  a  source  of  perpetual 
delight  and  a  confirmation  of  my  faith.  In 
short,  many  difficulties  are  removed  by  the 
true  science  of  our  age,  and  afTord  help 
to  my  mind  and  to  my  ministry.  I  could 
multiply  details;  but,  in  a  word,  all  that  is 
the  characteristic  progress  of  our  times  only 
goes  to  elucidate  much  that  was,  even  re- 
cently, hard  to  credit  in  the  books  of  the 
old  prophets.  "  Many  shall  run  to  and  fro, 
and  knowledge  shall  be  increased."  Who 
could  have  foreseen  the  amazing  fulfilment 
of  this  promise  concerning  the  latter  day, 
as  it  has  been  realized  in  our  own  lifetime  ? 
**  Ethiopia  shall  ivith  a  sudden  start  stretch 
forth  her  hands  unto  God."  That  is  the 
promise.  And  look  at  what  is  going  on  in 
the  Dark  Continent,  opened  to  the  Gospel 
and  to  civilization  all  at  a  bound.  When 
Humboldt's  "  Cosmos "  appeared,  it  was 
credited  as  the  ripe  fruit  of  all  modern  dis- 


22  HOLY    WRIT 

covery.  If  much  of  it  has  already  been 
thrown  aside  as  mere  lumber  for  college 
garrets,  why  should  we  hastily  commit  our- 
selves to  what  is  yet  theoretical  in  the  works 
of  Huxley  and  Darwin?  But  if  otherwise, 
then  it  goes  further  than  theology  has  ever 
ventured,  to  prove  that  this  earth  is  to  be 
burned  up ;  that  the  great  catastrophe  may 
be  near  at  hand ;  that  if  delayed,  it  is,  as 
St.  Peter  affirms,  because  it  is  *'  kept  in 
store"  by  the  word  and  power  of  God, 
"  reserved  unto  fire  against  the  day  of 
judgment  and  perdition  of  ungodly  men." 
Chemistry  and  geology  alike  refute  nothing 
Biblical,  but  confirm  many  startling  say- 
ings of  the  Master  and  of  His  Apostles. 
In  optics  and  acoustics  we  find  demonstra- 
tions of  some  of  the  most  mysterious  reve- 
lations of  Scripture,  inexplicable  till  now ; 
and  electricity  and  magnetism  go  far  to 
show  how  readily,  by  known  powers  of 
nature,  iron  may  be  made  to  swim ;  or 
how,   by   using  preternatural,    not   strictly 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  23 

supernatural  forces,  the  body  of  our  Lord 
might  have  sustained  itself  walking  upon 
the  waves  of  Gennesareth.i 

It  is  time  that  I  should  meet  your 
thoughts  by  acknowledging  that  I  can  do 
little  in  two  or  three  lectures,  necessarily 
thrown  into  a  popular  form,  toward  accom- 
plishing what  only  can  be  done  by  tech- 
nical processes,  to  which  only  the  expert  is 
equal — what  should  be  done,  in  short,  upon 
a  scale  of  expansive  research,  with  exhaust- 
ive analysis,  and  with  logic  the  most  elabo- 
rate and  inexorable.  This  is  obviously  out 
of  the  question;  what,  then,  can  I  hope  to 
do?  I  think  I  can  show  you  grounds  for 
my  own  settled  convictions,  and  reasons 
why  nobody  should  be  in  a  hurry  to  com- 
mit the  bark  in  which  his  Hfe  and  his  soul 
are  the  freight  to  the  foaming  currents  of 
contemporary  theory  ;  to  the  peril  of  rocks 
that  underlie  their  floods,  and  of  cataracts 
into  which  they  may  project  the  advent- 

1  See  Note  II. 


24  HOLY    WRIT 

urer.  I  can  show  you  that  *'  modern 
thought"  is,  in  fact,  somewhat  stale,  com- 
ing to  us,  as  it  does,  from  two  centuries  of 
perpetual  experiment,  which  warn  us,  like 
all  experience,  that  speculations  of  one 
generation  have  frequently  been  exploded 
by  the  next,  and  laughed  at  by  all  that 
have  followed. 

I  propose  to  present  you  with  a  brief 
survey  of  times  and  teachers,  which  it  wall 
be  well  for  you  to  examine  and  refute  if 
you  can,  before  you  adopt  what  happens  to 
be  popular  just  now.  When  you  arrive  at 
the  conclusion  that  after  ages  of  commo- 
tion nothing  has  been  reached  upon  which 
thinking  men  are  willing  to  unite,  so  far  as 
it  seems  to  conflict  with  the  Nicene  Faith,^ 
perhaps  you  will  be  wise  enough  to  draw 
the  very  practical  conclusion  to  *'  hold  fast 
that  which  is  good"  until  something  better 
is  tried  and  demonstrated  as  a  proper  sub- 
stitute for  the  Gospel  and  the  Church. 
1  See  Note  III. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  25 

''Modern  thought,"  so  called,  has  as- 
sumed two  positions  as  its  base,  which 
remain  to  be  proven.  A  Christian  knows 
they  never  can  be  proven  against  the 
Revelation  which  has  stood  all  tests  and 
survived  all  attacks  directed  against  it  from 
such  assumptions.      Here  they  are  : 

I.  No  genuine  prophecy  of  future  events 
has  ever  been  uttered,  or  can  be  made,  in 
the  nature  of  things. 

II.  Miracles,  or  supernatural  interrup- 
tions of  nature,  are  impossible  in  the  law 
and  order  of  the  universe,  and  cannot  be 
established  by  testimony. 

Bear  these  assumptions  in  mind,  and,  as 
believers  in  revealed  religion,  follow  me  in 
my  survey  of  their  history.  They  are  not 
modern,  in  reality,  but  are  revived  in  our 
times,  like  rusty  iron  furnished  with  a  new 
edge,  the  advances  of  science  supplying 
the  pretext  that  it  is  a  modern  implement. 
David  Hume  made  the  most  of  such  a 
weapon  in  the  last  century ;   but  it  is  note- 


26  HOLY    WRIT 

worthy  that  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury, 
whose  theism  was  the  original  of  deistical 
unbehef  in  England,  introduced  his  argu- 
ment against  Revelation  by  claiming  for  it 
a  supernatural  attestation,  i  He  declares 
that  Almighty  God,  by  a  miracle,  approved 
His  work  against  Christianity,  and  wishes 
us  to  believe  that  his  mission  was  accred- 
ited by  exceptional  seals  alike  of  prophecy 
and  miracle,  by  which  he  is  authorized  to 
deny  that  such  seals  were  awarded  to  the 
prophets  and  evangelists.  Such  is  the 
credulity  into  which  God  permits  men  to 
fall  when  they  deliberately  renounce  "  the 
faith  of  reason." 

Theism,  of  the  less  ignoble  sort,  is  as  old 
as  Greek  philosophy,  where  it  was  not  ig- 
noble, because  it  pointed  to  the  dawning  of 
the  better  day.  Pantheism  is  the  germinal 
thought  of  the  Brahmins,  Agnosticism  of  the 
Epicureans,  as  Pessimism  is  of  the  Buddh- 

iLeland's  "Views  of  Deistical  Writers,"  p.  20.     Ed. 
London,  1837. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  27 

ists;  and  "modern  thought,"  so  called, 
only  revives  these  spectres  of  the  night. 
Reaching  no  result,  and  demonstrating 
naught  but  its  own  impotency,  it  falls  back 
on  a  nude  deism  which  denies  the  "  super- 
natural," but  affirms  nothing  intelligible  by 
which  unbelief  can  be  united  and  organized. 
Its  creed  is  reducible  to  "  I  know  nothing," 
and  that  is  all  that  is  credible  in  its  profes- 
sions. Thank  God,  we  Christians  do  know 
something,  and  are  able  to  confirm  our  an- 
cient Faith  by  all  that  is  true  and  reason- 
able in  "  modern  thought  "  itself. 

But  let  us  go  back  to  Irenaeus  and  Hip- 
polytus,  and  we  may  add  Epiphanius ;  to 
their  museum  of  old  and  exploded  antago- 
nisms. There  you  find  the  genera  and  spe- 
cies of  all  unbelief  and  misbelief,  the  brood 
and  swarm  of  reptile  and  insect,  which 
came  out  of  the  heart  of  Simon  Magus  and 
out  of  the  mouth  of  Elymas  the  Sorcerer. 
If  not  scientifically  classified  and  labelled 
by  these  grand  old  masters,  yet  preserved 


28  HOLY    WRIT 

they  are  for  inspection;  as  one  finds  in  curi- 
osity-shops ''  the  alHgator  stuffed,"  or  the 
"  dried  beetle  with  a  pin  stuck  through 
him."  Examine  them  carefully,  and  there 
you  find  "  modern  thought  "  as  Christians 
met  it  two  thousand  years  ago.  The  Em- 
peror Julian  himself  accepted  defeat  when 
he  honestly  gave  up  all  pretence  to  be  a 
Christian  and  professed  a  philosophical 
heathenism,  varnished  with  a  dilute  moral- 
ity which  he  stole  from  the  Galilean  of 
Nazareth — from  Him  whom  he  hated  and 
would  not  name  as  the  Christ,  preferring 
Jupiter  and  Venus  to  the  Light  of  the 
world. 

Nevertheless,  we  may  meet  ''  modern 
thought "  on  its  new  arena,  disguised  as 
"  science,"  and  professing  the  ancient  an- 
tagonism under  this  mask  of  new  learning. 
It  gives  the  Christian  grand  advantages : 
for  (i)  it  is  yet  the  same  old  Antichrist, 
over  and  over  again  despoiled  of  the  ar- 
mour in  which  he  trusted;   and  (2)  it  is, 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  29 

after  all,  the  same  old  field  on  which  we 
have  engaged  him  before.  Prove  (i)  one 
unquestionable  prophecy  out  of  Daniel 
against  a  modern  Porphyry,  and  away  goes 
the  whole  rabble  of  railers  against  the 
supernatural.  Establish  (2)  a  single  mir- 
acle like  that  of  which  the  conversion  of 
Saul  of  Tarsus  is  the  indelible  demonstra- 
tion, and  the  supernatural  is  enthroned 
where  no  pretext  of  philosophy  can  shake 
it ;  nay,  where  science  itself  may  be  invoked 
to  aid  it  by  its  confessed  limitations,  such 
as  are  pointed  at  by  the  common  sense 
of  Shakespeare's  axiom,  '*  There  are  more 
things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamt 
of  in  your  philosophy." 

In  ultimate  analysis  you  will  find  nothing 
new  in  all  that  now  confronts  us.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  Narcissus  is  carried  away 
with  self-admiration,  as  he  surveys  himself 
in  the  brilliant  surface  of  our  times,  a  period 
in  which  the  inventive  genius  of  mankind 
has  surpassed  itself  and  multiplied  its  mar- 


30  HOLY    WRIT 

vels,  examples  of  stupendous  achievements. 
We  have  confessed  that  in  this  spirit  of 
natural  vain-glory  multitudes  of  clever  and 
scientific  scholars  have  arrayed  themselves 
against  Christ  and  the  Word  of  His  Truth. 
Such  opponents — we  repeat  it — are  to  be 
antagonized  only  by  minds  with  a  passion 
for  research  similar  to  theirs ;  by  attain- 
ments equal,  if  not  superior ;  by  a  candour 
the  most  fearless  in  admitting  a  difficulty ; 
and  by  a  patience  of  investigation  sharply 
in  contrast  with  the  rash  anticipations  of 
those  who,  while  many  links  remain  to  be 
supplied,  proclaim  mere  theory  as  if  it  were 
demonstrated  fact.  Men  who  revere  scien- 
tific truth,  and  who  hold  divine  truth  so 
firmly  that  they  rely  upon  all  truths  as  its 
helpers,  are  the  only  adherents  of  the  Gos- 
pel whose  vigour  of  faith  fits  them  to  be  its 
defenders.  But  as  for  the  menaces  of  the 
present  moment,  we  may  say  not  only, 
"  None  of  these  things  move  us,"  but  that 
there  is  a  Providence  which  has  permitted 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  3 1 

the  transient  evil  to  ensure  a  lasting  good. 
Our  faith  has  become  indolent  and  supine. 
Samson  has  dallied  and  slept,  and  the  Phi- 
listines are  upon  him.  We  are  in  need  of  a 
shaking,  and  of  an  awakening  to  greater 
works  than  have  been  attempted  for  ages. 
Perhaps  we  must  be  prepared  for  persecu- 
tions. I  am  not  ashamed  to  avow  my  belief 
that  ours  is  the  'Matter  day" — whatever 
that  may  include  or  imply,  about  Vv^hich  I 
have  nothing  to  say  at  present.  If  it  is  the 
age  when  '*  knowledge  is  increased,"  it  is 
also  the  age  of  anarchy,  such  as  agrees 
with  what  is  said  of  the  final  Antichrist, 
that  "  Lawless  One."  It  is  the  age  when 
perilous  times  have  come ;  when  many  de- 
part from  the  faith,  when  iniquity  abounds 
and  the  love  of  many  grows  cold.  In 
short,  it  is  an  age  answering,  in  every  par- 
ticular, to  those  prophecies  of  unregulated 
Democracy  which  breed  the  awful  conse- 
quences described  by  St.  Paul.  Look  at 
his    frightful    portraiture,  to   which   every 


52  HOLY    WRIT 

day's  report  in  the  journalism  of  Europe  and 
America  supplies  the  comment^  '*  Even 
as  they  did  not  like  to  retain  God  in  their 
knowledge,  God  gave  them  over  to  a  rep- 
robate mind,  .  .  .  being  filled  with  all 
unrighteousness,  fornication,  wickedness, 
covetousness,  maliciousness;  full  of  envy, 
murder,  debate,  deceit,  malignity  ;  whisper- 
ers, backbiters,  haters  of  God,  despiteful, 
proud,  boasters,  inveiitors  of  evil  things, 
disobedient  to  parents,  without  understand- 
ing, covenant-breakers,  without  natural  af- 
fection, implacable,  unmerciful.  .  .  .  Be- 
cause that,  when  they  knew  God,  they 
glorified  Him  not  as  God,  neither  were 
thankful ;  but  became  vain  in  their  imagina- 
tions, and  their  foolish  heart  was  darkened. 
Professing  themselves  to  be  wise,  they  be- 
came fools."  2  True,  St.  Paul  is  here  de- 
scribing the  former  heathenism  with  which 
he  was  then  contending,  but  not  less  does 

1  Romans  i.  28.     Note  IV. 

2  Note  also  II.  Tim.  iii.,  the  entire  chapter. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  33 

he  identify  it  with  the  great  apostasy  of 
the  last  days — a  return  to  just  such 
heathenism.  I  say,  then,  that  Providence 
is  (i)  awakening  our  energies  to  fresh  in- 
vestigations of  Scriptural  truth,  as  sustained 
by  all  true  science,  and  with  light  of  science 
capable  of  yielding  new^  confirmations  to 
God's  Holy  Word.  At  the  same  time.  He 
practically  prepares  us  for  (2)  the  final  or- 
deal through  which  the  world  is  soon  to 
pass. 

I  proceed  from  the  Catholic  standpoint 
to  a  survey  of  "  modern  thought,"  its  ori- 
gin, and  its  performances,  from  which  it 
will  appear  that  (i)  there  is  nothing  in  the 
present  outbreak  that  differs  radically  from 
what  had  been  encountered  in  the  two 
centuries  preceding  our  own ;  (2)  that  these 
ages  have  yielded  all  that  is  real  and  sub- 
stantial in  their  consequences  to  the  un- 
deniable triumph  and  spread  of  the  Gospel ; 
and  (3)  that  all  of  the  past  which  lends 
itself  to  any  species  of  unbelief  has  bred  the 


34  HOLY    WRIT 

decay  of  nations  and  the  most  intolerable 
evils  in  society,  or  has  reduced  itself  to 
nonentity  and  fruitless  Pessimism.  It  has 
constructed  nothing ;  confessedly,  the  equa- 
tion of  its  outcome  is  zero. 

Observe  the  workings  of  Providence  in 
modern  history,  which  dates  from  a  cent- 
ury of  preparations  that  ended  with  the 
world- awakening  discovery  of  America. 
Separated  from  the  Mother  Church  of 
the  Orient  by  the  creation  of  the  Papacy, 
under  Nicholas  I.,  the  churches  of  Europe, 
even  under  this  yoke,  maintained  the 
Nicene  Faith,  the  Apostolic  Episcopate, 
and  much  of  their  respective  autonomies. 
The  waking  up  of  men  and  nations  forced 
upon  Europe  the  convulsions  of  Luther  and 
Calvin ;  and  the  reactionary  work  of  Lay- 
nez,  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  produced  a 
corresponding  novelty,  the  so-called  **  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church."  This  was  the  prod- 
uct of  Laynez  after  seventeen  years  of  in- 
cubation, during  which  the   opposition   of 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  35 

older  bishops  was  stifled,  because  as  they 
died  they  were  replaced  by  more  servile 
men.  These  did  what  Laynez  inspired, 
what  the  Vatican  commanded.  Luther 
and  Calvin  were  not  more  really  the  crea- 
tors of  new  sects  than  this  wily  Laynez. 
As  Quinet  observes,  the  Council  of  Trent 
changed  everything,  without  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  revolution  effected  by  its  work.i 
Its  constituent  members  did  not  themselves 
comprehend  what  they  had  done,  till  all 
was  over.  The  creed  of  Pius  IV.  and  its 
new  catechism  supersedes  Catholicity  in 
Western  Europe.  The  great  councils  of 
antiquity  are  ignored  and  their  anathemas 
despised.  Aristotle  is  made  a  dogmatist,^ 
and  neutralizes  the  whole  succession  of 
Biblical  doctors,  from  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria to  St.  Bernard.  Syllogism  supplies  the 
place  of  testimony.  With  a  new  creed 
and  catechism,  behold  a  new  Church.  The 
historic  Episcopate  is  abolished,  the  name 

'  Note  V. 


36  HOLY    WRIT 

only  being  retained.  The  three  holy  orders 
are  pronounced  to  be  those  of  *'  presby- 
ters, deacons,  and  subdeacons."  Bishops  are 
only  a  grade  in  the  hierarchy — the  Pope  is 
universal  bishop.  Diocesan  bishops  are 
merely  his  vicars — presbyters  endowed 
with  his  functions  for  local  uses,  but  pos- 
sessing no  Episcopal  character  of  their  own 
under  Christ,  or  derived  immediately  from 
Him.  The  Bible  itself  is  revolutionized : 
the  Apocrypha  is  made  canonical  Scripture, 
and  the  Latin  Vulgate,  while  yet  in  flux, 
and  with  its  text  wholly  unsettled,  is  made 
equivalent  to  the  inspired  Hebrew  and 
Greek. ^  Practically  worse  than  all,  the  So- 
"ciety  of  Laynez  is  made  the  governing 
synod  of  Latin  Christendom.  For  three 
hundred  years  the  voice  of  the  Western 
Church  is  unheard  in  councils.^  The  Jesuit 
is  supreme :  pontiffs  reign  but  cannot  rule, 
save  as  the  '*  Black  Pope  "  directs.  But, 
as  was  observed,  this  stupendous  change  is 

1  Note  VI.  2  Note  I. 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  37 

silently  imposed.  The  "  White  Pope  "  sub- 
serves the  purposes  of  the  scene ;  another 
pulls  the  wires,  but  he  gesticulates  and 
utters  a  voice.  The  Latin  Mass  is  not 
changed,  and  the  people,  who  see  only 
their  old  forms  of  worship,  are  unconscious 
of  their  new  position.  In  contrast  with  the 
sects  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  they  imagine 
theirs  is  the  '*  Old  Church."  Under  this 
mask  of  antiquity,  the  Jesuits  began  to 
operate  upon  Germany  with  masterly 
effect.  Ranke  tells  the  story,  but  he  knows 
little  of  Catholicity  and  fails  to  penetrate 
the  secret  of  what  was  done.  For  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe  had  discarded  its  familiar- 
ity with  antiquity,  and  Laynez  had  broken 
with  the  Fathers  not  less  really  than  Luther 
and  Calvin.  The  devastating  wars  that 
followed  obliterated  all  the  ancient  land- 
marks. The  very  idea  of  such  a  Church  as 
was  recognized  by  the  Nicene  Creed  per- 
ished in  these  conflicts.  The  human  intel- 
lect was  at  sea  once  more,  without  chart  or 


38  HOLY    WRIT 

compass.  The  outraged  mind  and  con- 
science of  nations  were  frenzied  to  insanity. 
The  Gallicans  struggled  heroically,  for  a 
time,  to  revive  the  ancient  constitutions  and 
to  harmonize  the  new  religion  with  the 
creed  of  antiquity.^  Bossuet,  with  Titanic 
energy,  forced  the  modern  system  to  ac- 
cept, at  least  in  France,  rejected  shreds  of 
Catholicity,  as  understood  by  all  its  doctors 
and  Fathers.  The  school  of  Port  Royal 
strove  to  preserve  the  morality  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  and  the  love  of  Christ 
as  the  bases  of  Christian  character.  Pascal 
and  the  Arnaulds,  with  Fleury  and  others 
of  kindred  genius,  carried  on  this  holy  war, 
till  their  houses  were  razed  to  the  ground 
and  their  dead  torn  from  their  graves. 
Jesuits  no  longer  wore  their  mask,  but 
proudly  disclosed  '*  the  hand  of  Joab  "  in 
their  triumph  over  the  Church  of  the  Gauls. 
It  was  the  voice  of  Rehoboam's  counsellors 
once  more:   "The  pontiffs  have  chastised 

1  See  views  of  Leibnitz,  in  Quinet,  ut  supra. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  39 

you  with  whips,  but  we  will  chastise  you 
with  scorpions." 

In  Germany,  while  Rome  laughed  at  the 
impotency  of  inorganic  Faith  to  resist  their 
invasion,  they  drove  the  frantic  mind  of  a 
new  generation  into  scepticism.  Spinoza 
had  forced  it  to  assume  a  philosophic  form, 
such  as  fascinates  men  who  are  halting  be- 
tween two  opinions.  And  thus  we  reach 
the  sources  of  what  has  created  the  devas- 
tations of  irreligion  for  two  centuries  in  con- 
tinental Europe.  The  Faith  of  the  Gospel, 
the  Creed  and  Church  Unity  had  been 
wrecked  and  forfeited  alike  by  Luther  and 
Calvin  and  Laynez.  There  was  nothing 
left  for  drowning  men  but  the  individualism 
of  "save  himself  who  can."  And  each, 
grappling  something  that  floated  in  the 
billows,  if  he  escaped  to  land,  proceeded  to 
shape  it  into  an  idol,  and  to  commend  it  to 
mankind  as  the  solution  of  all  problems  in 
the  mystery  of  human  life. 


40  HOLY   WRIT 

Out  of  Sheol,  Annas  and  Caiaphas 
seemed  to  have  stirred  up  this  Jew  Spi- 
noza to  avenge  them  upon  Saul  of  Tarsus : 
for  whereas  the  "  Reformers "  of  Latin 
Christendom  had  accepted  St.  Paul,  ex- 
pounded by  St.  Augustine,  as  at  once  their 
philosopher  and  doctor,  his  name  was  su- 
preme with  their  disciples.  But  it  had  be- 
come identified  with  a  new  scholasticism, 
and  was  so  entangled  with  metaphysics  that 
**  modern  thought  "  was  already  conceived 
and  born.  Spinoza  turned  the  **  Reforma- 
tion "  into  scepticism  by  refinements  upon 
the  ideas  of  Descartes,  who  had  broken 
with  Aristotle  and  his  early  Jesuit  teachers. 
The  era  of  interminable  speculation  was 
thus  begun,  and  the  evolution  of  **  isms," 
in  serial  forms,  was  inevitable.  The  mass- 
ive energies  of  Leibnitz  stimulated  imita- 
tions, and  minds  the  most  ignoble  vied  with 
men  of  lofty  aspirations  to.  make  themselves 
lawgivers  and  to  settle  religion  upon  philo- 
sophic foundations.    At  such  an  epoch,  the 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  4 1 

boast  of  "illumination" — the  philosophy 
of  enlightenment — comes  down  to  the 
masses  only  in  the  form  of  negations,  and 
through  the  instrumentality  of  superficially 
clever  talkers  and  looser  thinkers.  Of 
these,  he  is  the  most  popular  who  denies 
the  most,  and  is  the  loudest  and  most  arro- 
gant in  his  assumptions.  Especially  is  he 
successful  if  his  philosophy  is  a  disguised 
sensualism,  and  his  creed  *'  Let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  To  revert 
to  old  paganism  is  its  plan,  but  its  policy 
is  to  dress  it  up  and  set  it  forth  as  Thought. 
Given  a  materializing  Berlin — or,  perhaps 
I  should  say,  a  sentimental  Boston  or  a 
Mammon-worshipping  New  York — retri- 
bution visits  such  a  place  from  an  insulted 
Creator,  as  of  old  when  He  said,  "  I  also 
will  choose  their  delusions."  ^  Thus  Di- 
vine Wisdom  permits  some  adventurer  to 
attract  the  unwary  by  the  defiant  impu- 
dence of  his  "  doubts  "  ;  by  his  boldness  in 

*  Isaiah  Ixvi.  4. 


42  HOLY    WRIT 

attacking  everything  that  good  men  be- 
lieve, and  practically  outraging  all  that  they 
love  and  cherish  as  truth.  So,  while  the 
earnestly  religious  enquirer  draws  back 
from  perilous  conclusions,  these  find  their 
time  and  place,  because  they  have  no 
scruples.  As,  for  example,  when  Wolff 
had  stirred  up  attention  and  patronage 
at  Halle,  Berlin  was  ready  for  practical 
illumination  by  somebody  less  unlike  itself. 
The  Lord  left  them  to  their  lusts,  and  they 
sold  themselves  to  Nicolai,  whom  they 
conceived  to  be  the  consummate  flower 
of  German  "  illumination."  He  was  but  a 
looking-glass,  in  fact,  in  whom  they  saw 
Self  reflected — in  all  their  caprices  and 
tastes  and  fashions ;  so  that  in  crying  him 
up  they  simply  adored  themselves.  By  ex- 
amining such  a  personage,  one  gets  the 
measure  of  his  followers.  An  eminent  Ger- 
man^ of  our  own  times  has  thus  described 

^  Dr.  Kahnis,  "  German  Protestantism,"  p.  44.   Edin- 
burgh translation,  ed.  1856 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  43 

him :  "  He  was  a  bookseller  who  had  ex- 
celled in  no  single  branch  of  science,  and 
yet  he  sat  in  judgment  upon  all  the  depart- 
ments of  literature,  in  one  of  its  most  flour- 
ishing periods.  A  man  of  average  intel- 
lect, without  productive  power,  with  the 
education  of  a  dilletante,  he  had  the  arro- 
gance to  pass  sentence  upon  all  the  crea- 
tions of  genius.  A  man  of  wholly  unphilo- 
sophical  mind,  but  skilled  in  the  use  of  bold 
and  unscrupulous  argument,  he  ridiculed 
the  philosophy  of  its  German  masters." 
Posturing  as  the  Coryphaeus  of  a  loftier 
"  Protestantism,"  he  actually  became  the 
original  of  what  more  learned  men  have 
lifted  into  a  "  higher  criticism."  He  dared 
most  and  went  furthest.  Hence,  he  be- 
came such  a  power  that  even  Fichte  felt 
called  not  only  to  recognize  him,  but  to 
break  this  butterfly  on  his  remorseless 
wheel. 

Fichte    says :    "  His    Protestantism    was 
simply   a    protestation    against    all    truth; 


44  HOLY   WRIT 

against  all  that  is  above  our  senses,  and 
against  every  form  of  religion  that  finds  its 
end  of  controversy  in  faith.  To  him,  relig- 
ion was  by  no  means  a  matter  of  heart 
and  life ;  it  was  only  such  education  of  the 
head  as  might  furnish  him  with  materials 
of  never-ending  talk.  His  freedom  of 
thinking  was  freedom  from  all  that  was, 
and  is,  ThoiLght:  the  licentiousness  of  empty 
rumination,  without  substance  and  without 
aim.  Liberty  of  judgment  " — pray  listen 
to  this — ''  was,  with  him,  the  right  of  every 
bungler  and  ignorant  man  to  give  his  opin- 
ion about  everything,  whether  he  under- 
stood it  or  not,  and  whether  or  not  there 
was  either  head  or  tail  in  what  he  said."i 
Have  not  just  such  characters  been  seen 
among  us — claiming  '*  all  the  brains  "  and 
posing  as  the  apostles  or  martyrs  of  ''  mod- 
ern thought"  ? 

When  Leipzig  was  in  its  glory,  two  of 
its   most  brilliant   illuminators   fell   into  a 

*  Quoted  by  Kahnis,  p.  45,  tit  supra. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  45 

quarrel — never  mind  about  what,  for  it 
only  meant  "who  should  be  greatest" 
So  the  retributive  justice  of  a  wise  Provi- 
dence gave  Leipzig,  also,  its  fool  for  meas- 
urement; and  as  Leipzig  merited  some- 
thing not  quite  so  paltry  as  had  sufficed 
for  Berlin,  its  "philosophers"  found  their 
mental  and  moral  metre  in  Bahrdt.  If  this 
man  was  of  larger  intellectual  calibre  than 
Nicolai,  he  proved  immeasurably  worse  in 
morals.  He  was  a  clever  boy  when  he  lis- 
tened to  the  words  and  wit  of  Crusius  and 
Ernesti,  then  dividing  between  them  the 
admiration  of  the  University.^  He  es- 
poused the  more  orthodox  party  of  the 
former,  but  only  to  migrate  to  that  of 
Ernesti  when  it  better  suited  his  supreme 
devotion  to  himself.  Ernesti,  the  well- 
known  Ciceronian  critic,  was  perhaps  the 
first  practical  author  of  the  now  dominant 
maxim  that  "  the  Bible  must  be  treated  like 
any  other  book."  But  Bahrdt  was  so  apt 
^  Kahnis,  p.  131 ;  but  also,  p.  119. 


46  HOLY   WRIT 

a  scholar  that  he  put  it  to  its  ultimate  test, 
anticipating  in  his  subsequent  career  the 
history  of  "  higher  criticism. "  He  mounted 
a  pulpit,  where  his  aei^obatizing  and  peri- 
phronizing  could  only  be  depictured  by 
Aristophanes  himself.  He  was  lifted  by 
the  Athenian  passion  of  the  day  into  the 
chair  of  a  professor.  Erfurt  received  him 
after  Leipzig,  and  Bahrdt  succeeded  Luther 
in  that  field  which  Luther's  piety  had  en- 
nobled, only  to  demonstrate  what  had  been 
the  product  of  Luther's  fatal  mistakes.  He 
still  professed  to  be  a  Lutheran,  but  he 
owns  that  when  he  deserted  Crusius  his 
Lutheranism  was  professed  with  mental 
reservations.  And  so  he  soon  boasted  that 
Ernesti  had  supplied  him  with  an  "  im- 
movable foundation "  for  open  unbelief, 
by  bringing  theology  to  the  touchstone 
of  philology  and  reason.  Very  logically, 
therefore,  he  makes  himself  a  libertine ; 
and  while  lecturing  on  exegesis  and  divin- 
ity, in  this  stage  of  his  advance,  he  began 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  47 

to  enlighten  the  world  by  a  new  "  Biblical 
system  of  doctrine."  One  by  one  he  re- 
nounced all  tokens  of  faith  and  worship, 
and  yet  felt  himself  qualified  to  produce  a 
fresh  translation  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles, 
which  he  reduced,  as  Goethe  sarcastically 
remarked,  to  **  romance  and  familiar  cor- 
respondence." Yet  he  found  admirers  and 
hearers,  even  among  those  who  decorated 
him  with  the  title  of  ''  the  rake-hell  pro- 
fessor." When,  at  last,  he  was  generally 
voted  a  nuisance,  he  fled  into  Prussia,  the 
centre  of  "  Illuminism,"  where  he  shook  off, 
in  rags  and  tatters,  the  last  remnant  of  his 
faith,  announcing  his  discovery  that  the 
Scriptures  were  merely  *'  a  human  produc- 
tion." Let  his  followers  of  our  times  claim 
no  credit  for  reaching  this  same  conclusion. 
Bahrdt  was  their  shining  original.  He 
called  his  system  "naturalism,"  but  con- 
descended to  associate  himself  with  Moses 
and  the  Divine  Redeemer  as  an  *'  instru- 
ment of  Providence  "  ;   adding,  "  precisely 


48  HOLY    WRIT 

as  I  regard  Confucius,  Luther,  Semler,  and 
— Myself!"  He  died  the  victim  of  his 
licentiousness ;  and  hardly  was  he  in  his 
grave  when  the  Reign  of  Terror,  the  fruit 
of  '*  naturalism  "  as  expounded  by  Rous- 
seau, broke  out  in  France.  Prussia,  where 
Frederick  had  sown  the  wind,  was  destined 
to  reap  the  whirlwfnd.  Bahrdt  had  only 
figured  as  a  stormy-petrel  heralding  the 
tempest. 

Here  let  me  go  back  to  the  correspond- 
ing history  of  unbelief  in  France,  with  a 
glance  at  its  influence  upon  Germany. 
While  we  must  praise  God  for  the  power 
of  that  truly  Catholic  Restoration,  which 
saved  England  from  the  awful  apostasies 
which  have  predominated  in  continental 
Europe,  we  cannot  sufficiently  appreciate 
our  blessings  without  studying  in  contrast 
the  co-operative  tendencies  of  the  systems 
of  Luther,  Calvin  and  Laynez  to  develop 
unbelief  in  its  most  practical  and  destruc- 
tive forms. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  49 

Voltaire,  perhaps  with  a  grim  irony,  con- 
cludes the  Henriade  with  the  lame  and  im- 
potent surrender  of  his  hero's  faith  :  an  act 
which  cancels  the  claim  of  that  prince  to 
the  surname  of  "  Great,"  and  which  has 
borne  fruits  of  incalculable  bitterness  for 
his  dynasty  and  for  unhappy  France.  How 
different  would  have  been  French  history 
had  he  made  common  cause  with  the  Queen 
of  England,  by  treating  the  Trent  Council 
as  an  insult  to  human  intelligence,  and  re- 
storing the  ancient  doctrine  and  discipline 
of  Catholicity.^  Most  respectfully  did  the 
court  of  France  listen  to  Theodore  Beza 
while  he  enforced  the  necessity  of  reforms ; 
but  when  he  was  asked,  WJiat,  then,  should 
be  done  ?  he  could  give  no  satisfactory  an- 
swer.^ Had  he  pointed  across  the  Channel 
and  said,  *'  Let  us  restore  the  Catholicity 
of  the  primitive  centuries,  as  they  have 
done  in  Britain,"  he  would  have  been  the 
greatest  benefactor  of  Latin  Europe  that 

1  Note  VII.  2  Note  VIII. 


50  HOLY    WRIT 

has  arisen  since  the  days  of  Irenseus  and 
Pothinus.  Contrast  the  last  three  centuries 
of  French  history  with  the  same  period  in 
England. 

The  story  of  Port  Royal  is  one  of  the 
most  instructive  in  modern  annals ;  would 
it  were  better  understood!  To  the  in- 
trigues, the  perfidy,  and  the  cruelty  of  the 
Jesuits  is  due  their  triumph  over  the  school 
of  Pascal.  In  accomplishing  it,  like  those 
reptiles  which  destroy  themselves  while  in- 
flicting their  venom  upon  a  victim,  they  in- 
volved their  society  and  their  country  in  a 
common  desolation.  Out  of  their  school 
came  forth  Voltaire,  trained  alike  to  his 
frivolity  by  their  laxity  of  morals,  and  to 
his  exterminating  hate  by  their  fanatical 
persecution  of  godliness  and  devotion  in 
such  examples  as  those  of  the  Arnaulds,  of 
Quesnel,  and,  in  short,  of  all  the  Jansenists. 
It  was  not  difficult  for  their  disciple  to  prac- 
tise the  same  artifices  against  all  who  truly 
loved  Jesus  Christ.     To  what  had  not  the 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  5  I 

State  religion  been  degraded  when  a  Mas- 
sillon  could  consent  to  lay  hands  on  the 
most  dissolute  of  court  favorites,  making  a 
bishop  and  a  successor  to  Fenelon  of  a 
licentious  infidel,  the  infamous  Dubois! 
This  man,  the  companion  and  confederate 
of  Voltaire,  who  was  not  even  in  holy 
orders  when  he  was  thus  raised  to  the  arch- 
bishopric of  Cambrai  at  a  single  bound,  is 
described  by  a  contemporary^,  in  language 
which  nobody  considers  exaggerated,  as  a 
"  consummate  liar,  in  whose  character  all 
other  vices — ambition,  perfidy,  avarice,  and 
debauchery — wrestled  for  mastery."  All 
this  was  notorious,  yet  Clement,  though 
personally  a  pontiff  of  the  better  sort,  made 
him  "  a  prince  of  the  Church,"  his  own 
councillor  as  cardinal,  and  his  possible  suc- 
cessor in  the  Papacy.^  Does  anybody 
wonder   at   what    followed,  or   at    all    the 

*The  Abbe  Guettee  describes  Dubois  as  "  un  des 
etres  les  plus  vils  qui  aient  deshonore  I'humanite. " — 
"  L'Eglise  de  France,"  vol.  xi.,  p.  345. 


52  HOLY   WRIT 

atheism  which  afflicts  France  to  the  present 
moment?^  It  was  this  that  bred  her  en- 
cyclopaedists, and,  through  them,  her  Dan- 
tons  and  her  Robespierres. 

In  an  evil  hour,  Frederick  invited  Vol- 
taire into  Prussia,  to  figure  at  once  as  the 
court  favorite  and  the  court  fool — for  he 
condescended  to  accept  both  positions,  and 
to  merit  them  alike  by  his  servile  flatteries 
and  his  shameless  misuse  of  wit  and  clever- 
ness. It  was  he  that  made  irreligion  fash- 
ionable among  the  grave  and  serious 
countrymen  of  Luther  and  Melanchthon. 
But  Frederick,  who  inflicted  this  terrible 
wound  upon  the  social  life  of  his  people, 
was  not  less  guilty  when  he  recalled  Wolff 
to  Prussia,  and  to  a  professorship — from 
which  his  stern  old  father  had  ejected  him, 
banishing  him,  "  bag  and  baggage,"  from 
the  kingdom  on  two  days'  notice,  by  hur- 

^  It  has  been  recently  proved  that  the  Roman  Church 
in  France  has  no  real  hold  on  more  than  two  millions 
of  her  people. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  53 

ried  compliance  with  which  he  barely  es- 
caped the  gallows.  To  requite  him  for 
such  hard  usage,  the  junior  Frederick  made 
him  a  nobleman ;  thus  assuring  the  univer- 
sities that  a  claim  to  promotion,  in  his  day, 
should  be  no  other  teachings,  from  a  pro- 
fessor's chair,  than  such  as  shake  alike 
men's  convictions  of  morality  and  of  the 
revealed  Truth  of  God. 

The  mention  of  Wolff  recalls  what  I  have 
said  of  Nicolai  and  Bahrdt,  and  makes  it 
proper  for  me  to  refer  to  the  historic  pages 
of  Ueberweg,  or  of  Schwegler,  for  the  less 
ignoble  workings  of  "  philosophy,"  in  the 
progress  of  scepticism  and  finally  for  its 
arrest.  Why  have  I  not  directed  attention 
to  the  shining  names  which  might  thus 
be  recollected  ?  I  answer,  you  may  study 
them  in  works  devoted  to  their  labours ;  ^ 
but  my  aim  is  to  be  practical,  and  I  have 
pointed  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  such  men 
who  make  themselves  felt  by  the  masses 

•  See  Note  IX. 


54  HOLY    WRIT 

in  any  country.  They  use  "  great  swelling 
words,"  and  appeal  to  scholars  in  behalf  of 
their  theories,  which  are  generally  mingled 
with  cautions  or  diluted  with  ambiguities. 
It  is  not  Crusius  nor  Ernesti,  nor  the 
schools  of  Leipzig  and  Tubingen,  that  have 
leavened  the  popular  thought  of  Germany. 
"Modern  thought"  was  popularized  by 
inferior  men.  That  has  been  the  work  of 
mere  talkers — of  Quixotic  knights- errant, 
who  have  gratified  the  people  like  mounte- 
banks at  country  fairs ;  or  of  professional 
preachers,  panting  for  applause,  and  trans- 
lating, into  the  dialect  of  the  superficial  or 
the  vulgar,  ideas  gleaned  at  second-hand 
from  more  prudent  theorists,  whom  it  de- 
lighted them  to  surpass  in  audacity,  forcing 
their  maxims  to  ultimate  issues.  Such  men 
never  point  out  the  fact  that  the  masters 
whom  they  quote  may  be  interpreted,  not 
infrequently,  as  giving  their  oracles  an 
obscurity  of  form  and  phrase,  in  order  to 
prompt  us  to  understand  their  deeper  con- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  55 

victions  in  the  times  which  they  foresaw 
and  in  which  our  own  lot  is  cast.  For 
nothing  is  more  true  than  that  even  Ger- 
man philosophy  has  been  working  towards 
truth  and  towards  the  renovation  of  Faith, 
steadily  and  progressively,  from  the  day 
of  Kant  to  the  present  period,  when  Hegel 
is  claimed  by  not  a  few  believers  as  furnish- 
ing them  with  texts  for  the  rebuke  of  irre- 
ligion.i  For  myself,  I  find  no  help  in 
them.  There  is  no  need  of  reconstructing 
the  faith  of  Clement  and  Athanasius.^ 
Yet  one  delights  to  observe  that  when  a 
crazy  unbelief  has  exhausted  itself,  men 
cannot  return  to  soberness  without  an 
advance  toward  belief.  After  Schleier- 
macher,3  Germany  began  to  talk  seriously 
about  man  in  his  moral  faculties  and  his 
immortal  aspirations.  This  begets  high 
thinking  and  a  movement  of  our  spiritual 
nature  Godward.      It  is  impossible  for  any 

»  See  Note  X.  2  ^ee  Note  XI. 

3  See  Note  XH. 


56  HOLY    WRIT 

man  to  delight  in  the  idea  of  God,  save  as 
He  has  revealed  Himself  in  Christ  crucified 
and  risen  again.  So  comes  back  not  only 
the  smothered  instinct  that  reaches  forth  to 
the  Unseen,  but  a  developing  capacity  for 
Faith  and  for  searching  the  Scriptures  in 
love  and  with  holy  hope.  Depend  upon  it, 
the  very  men  who  boast  themselves  as  pro- 
gressive and  advanced  are  priding  them- 
selves upon  their  possession  of  ideas  which 
are  but  fragments  of  exploded  "  lUumin- 
ism."  They  mistake  their  epoch,  and  are 
drifting  backward  in  its  muddy  shallows, 
while  the  grand  current  of  philosophy,  of 
learning,  of  research,  and  of  civilization  rolls 
on  to  flood  the  earth  with  light  and  truth, 
**  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea." 

The  consequences  of  **  Illuminism "  in 
France  need  only  be  pointed  at :  they  ap- 
pall mankind.  Let  us  observe  their  less 
noted  effect  upon  the  phlegmatic  and  more 
serious  Teutons.  "  That  religious  spirit 
which  imparts  stability  to  a  Christian  peo- 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  57 

pie,"  says  Kahnis,  "  had  altogether  per- 
ished in  the  age  of  Illumiftism.  .  .  .  From 
its  spirit,  which  waged  war  with  all  that 
had  been  handed  down,  Austria  and  Prus- 
sia had  reaped  destruction." 

Frederick  himself  trembled  at  the  pros- 
pects of  what  he  began  to  foresee  when 
his  last  days  darkened  around  him,  often 
prompting  him  to  suicide.  At  the  close  of 
the  Seven  Years'  War,  smothering  his 
chagrin,  he  thus  gives  vent  to  his  forebod- 
ings :  "  May  Heaven  preserve  the  sover- 
eigns who  shall  govern  this  country  from 
the  scourges  and  calamities  which  Prussia 
had  suffered  in  these  times  of  trouble  and 
subversion."  Did  he  fail  to  recognize  the 
subversion  of  his  people's  faith  as  the  root 
of  all  their  troubles  ?  And  for  that,  whom 
had  he  to  thank  but  himself?  The  severe 
Calvinism  of  his  father — who  was  a  Crom- 
well in  his  way — had  imparted  to  the 
troops  he  created  a  spirit  of  subordination 
and  discipline   that  amazed  all  men ;    but 


58  HOLY    WRIT 

when  the  veterans  of  those  first  armies  of 
his  son  had  fallen  in  the  victories  they  won 
for  their  king,  the  reinforcements  by  which 
he  endeavoured  to  replace  them  were  found 
incapable  of  the  old  drill  and  corps-spirit. 
His  loose  example  had  leavened  the  new 
generation.  He  found  them  deficient  in 
manhood.  They  lacked  upward  aspira- 
tions, and  hence  were  devoid  of  character 
such  as  delights  in  discipline  and  develops 
strength.  They  went  into  battles  half  de- 
moralized before  they  fired  a  gun.  The 
vertebrate  vigour  of  their  parents  had 
given  way  under  the  corrosions  of  doubt. 
What  was  the  world  to  come  for  them? 
What  was  their  Fatherland  ?  Why  should 
they  be  soldiers  for  a  few  kreuzers  per 
week?     Why  die  for  anything? 

Kahnis  credits  poor  Frederick  with  nat- 
ural remorse  when  he  became  sensible  of 
this.  Carlyle  remarks  :  "  He  cannot  now 
do  Leuthens  and  Rossbachs  for  shining 
feats  of  victory  that  astonish  all  the  world. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  59 

"His  fine  Prussian  veterans  have  mostly 
perished,  replaced  by  new  levies  of  troops 
inferior  both  in  discipline  and  native  qual- 
ity ^  Let  us  go  back  to  Leuthen,  a  battle, 
for  Prussia's  part  in  it,  the  most  briUiant  of 
any  since  the  great  Gustavus,  and  not  sur- 
passed till  the  sun  of  Austerlitz  rose  for 
Napoleon.  It  illustrates  what  has  been 
said  of  the  contrast  between  the  old  troops 
and  the  new,  and,  with  abbreviations  and 
condensations,  I  shall  let  Carlyle  describe  it 
in  his  own  graphic  way.  He  is  relating 
how  the  diminished  and  exhausted  army, 
of  which  his  veteran  corps  was  not  only 
the  body  but  the  soul,  moved  into  action 
on  a  field  .where  five  thousand  were  to  die, 
or  to  lie  in  mortal  agonies  before  nightfall. 
The  king  had  ordered  that  this  movement 
should  be  made  in  solemn  silence  —  no 
sound  but  their  tramp  and  the  measure  of 
music  by  which  they  marched.  For  a  time 
this  was  accomplished  by  men  who  con- 
fronted almost  certain  death  with  the  nerve 


60  HOLY    WRIT 

of  principle  and  religious  feeling.  This  had 
elevated  their  military  character  far  above 
that  of  Roman  legions — those  embodiments 
ot  brute  energy  or  mechanical  force. 
Every  man  was  a  hero,  fired  by  love  to 
his  Fatherland  and  a  sense  of  duty  to  his 
commander  and  his  God.  Carlyle  adopts 
the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness  :  "  Their 
steadiness,  their  swiftness  and  exactitude 
were  unsurpassable.  All  flowed  on  as  if  in 
a  review,  and  you  could  read  in  the  eyes 
of  our  brave  troops  the  noble  temper  they 
were  in.  .  .  .  From  the  column  nearest 
the  king — which  was  to  be  first  in  line  and 
to  receive  the  immediate  shock  of  the 
action — he  heard,  all  at  once,  the  sound  of 
Psalmody — the  many-voiced  harmony  of  a 
church-hymn  well  known  to  Frederick  in 
his  youth.  It  had  broken  out  among  those 
otherwise  silent  men,  the  band  accompany- 
ing." Here  is  one  stanza  that  Frederick 
recognized,  as  it  went  forth  on  the  still  air 
from   those   heroes,  their  sonorous  throats 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  6 1 

giving  full    effect    to   every   rugged   Ger- 
man word : 

"  Grant  that  with  zeal  and  skill 

This  day  I  do 

hat  me  to  do  behooves, 

What  Thou  command'st  me  to : 
Grant  that  I  do  it  sharp, 

At  point  of  movement  fit, 
And  when  I  do  it,  grant 

Me  good  success  in  it!  " 

Carlyle  says :  **  He  has  heard  the  voice 
of  many  waters ;  has  paused  on  the  moun- 
tains, hearkening  to  the  far-off  Psalms  of 
the  Scottish  Covenanters ;  but  a  voice  like 
this,  breaking  the  silence  of  severest  dis- 
cipline at  such  a  terrible  moment,  few  have 
ever  heard,  before  or  since." 

An  officer,  no  doubt  a  martinet,  spurs 
forward  and  accosts  the  king. 

Officer:  "  Shall  I  put  a  stop  to  this,  your 
Majesty?" 

The  King :  "  By  no  means — by  no 
means." 

He  felt  for  a  moment  the  sublime  emo- 


62  HOLY    WRIT 

tlons  of  religion,  and  he  felt  not  less  how 
much  it  imported  for  him,  and  for  the  fort- 
unes of  the  day.  After  a  solemn  pause  of 
reflection,  turning  to  one  of  his  generals, 
Frederick  spoke  again. 

The  King :  "With  men  like  these  don't 
you  think  I  shall  have  victory  to-day?" 

Carlyle  continues :  *'  His  hard  heart 
seems  to  have  been  touched,  as  it  well 
might  be.  Indeed,  there  was  in  him,  in 
those  grim  days,  a  tone  as  of  trust  in  the 
Eternal;  as  of  real  religion,  piety,  and 
faith,  scarcely  noticeable  in  his  history  else- 
where :  his  religion — and  in  zvithered forms 
he  had  a  good  deal  of  it — being,  almost 
always,  in  a  voiceless  state.  Nay,  it  was 
ultra- voiceless — or  voiced  the  wrong  way,- 
as  is  well  known." 

So  speaks  Carlyle.^  And  now  I  ask,  Is 
there  no  lesson  here  which  Americans  need 
to    lay   to   heart   in   these   days?     Is    our 

1  "  Life  of  Frederick,"  vol.  vi.,  pp.  53,  183,  192. 
Ed.  Boston,  1884. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  63 

epoch  to  learn  nothing  from  the  experiences 
of  the  past — nothing  from  the  history  of 
peoples  ?  Should  our  Washingtons  or  Lin- 
colns  give  place  even  to  Fredericks  or  to 
Napoleons,  is  it  likely  that  the  change  will 
be  for  any  lasting  good  to  the  Republic? 
Is  not  our  epoch  surcharged  with  elements 
out  of  which  may  break,  at  any  moment, 
the  overthrow  of  law  and  social  order? 
To  such  outbreaks  republics  have  ever  been 
subject,  and  they  generally  entail  a  chronic 
series  of  convulsions  which  no  republic  can 
survive.  Let  us  be  sure  that  many  whom 
men  of  culture  and  good  taste  are  content 
to  let  alone,  as  unworthy  even  of  their  re- 
buke, are  yet  formidable  tribunes  of  the 
populace.  They  peddle  their  blasphemies 
as  popular  lecturers  or  scientific  sciolists. 
They  scatter  firebrands  among  combusti- 
bles, and  Death  and  Hell  ride  after  them. 
Let  the  youth  of  our  Republic  study 
France,  just  before  and  after  Mirabeau 
opened  the  States-General,  and  say  where 


64  HOLY    WRIT 

they  would  have  cried  a  halt  to  such  prog- 
ress as  the  encyclopaedists  had  begun.  It 
may  be  of  practical  use  to  them  before 
long  in  America.  Let  them  halt  betimes. 
For  the  period  of  German  renovation, 
and  its  encouraging  promise  for  the  future, 
I  may  refer  you  to  Kahnis ;  or  it  may  be 
sufficient  to  remind  you  of  such  names  as 
those  of  Neander,  Tholuck,  Hengstenberg, 
Olshausen,  Stier,  the  Jigavenly- minded  Au- 
berlen,  and  in  our  own  day  the  profoundly 
learned  Delitzsch ;  better  than  all  these 
the  truly  primitive  and  scriptural  DoUinger, 
and  the  great  school  of  the  rising  Old 
Catholics.^  But  while  the  upward  strug- 
gles of  these  noble  examples  prove  that 
God  has  not  forsaken  those  who  represent 
the  Ages  of  Faith ;  while  they  point  to  a 
glorious  future  of  Catholic  restoration,  in 
which  the  Anglican  Church  is  called  to 
bear  so  glorious  a  part,  and  in  which  all  her 
true  sons  will  be  found  pressing  forward, 

>  See  Note  XIII. 


AND    iMODERN    THOUGHT.  65 

as  one  man,  under  the  Cross  of  Christ — 
what  is  more  encouraging  than  the  decrepi- 
tude of  rationaHsm,  in  the  direct  Hne  of  its 
history,  now  perishing  in  "  Pessimism  "  ? 
Amid  starthng  flashes  of  apparent  revival 
in  England  and  Holland,  we  may  learn 
to  regard  them  as  momentary  reactions 
merely.  For  phenomena  precisely  similar 
flashed  forth  in  Germany  at  the  moment  of 
her  renovation  and  revival,  and  they  only 
stimulated  greater  and  better  movements 
to  development  and  triumphant  advance. 

'The  logical  and  historic  outcome  of 
the  "  modern  thought "  we  have  traced 
through  two  centuries  is  found  indeed  in 
''Pessimism,"  the  scornful  and  contemptu- 
ous school  of  Schopenhauer,  which  stands 
like  the  ''  Old  Guard  "  at  Waterloo,  with 
beastly  language  on  its  lips,  but  daring 
to  perish  for  a  lost  cause.  **  Come  on, 
you  cowards,"  they  say  to  men  who  have 
gone  with  them  to  the  gulfs  pointed  out 
by  Nicolai  and  Bahrdt — though  following 


66  HOLY    WRIT 

successive  leaders  less  ignoble,  and  spirits 
less  audacious — "'  come  on,  you  lagging 
cowards ;  be  bravely  consistent  with  us. 
Hear  us  as  we  proclaim  the  conclusion  of 
the  whole  matter:  despair  is  our  creed, 
and  suicide  our  ethics.  Life  is  not  worth 
living ;  there  is  no  hereafter ;  no  hope,  no 
immortality,  nothing  but  the  grave;  in 
short — there  is  no  God."  Such  is  the 
legacy  of  two  .centuries  of  revolt  from 
Revelation,  after  all  the  sweat  and  blood 
they  have  exacted  from  the  image  of  God, 
in  its  degradation ;  such  the  last  ditch  into 
which  it  is  dragged  down  by  that  irrevers- 
ible doom  of  dust  and  ashes  which  loads 
humanity  when  it  rejects  Jesus  and  the 
resurrection.  Thank  God,  nevertheless,  for 
the  truth  of  its  dying  groan ;  for  the  ex- 
piring breath  with  which  it  names  itself 
superlatively  bad.  It  justly  calls  itself 
"  Pessimism  "  :  the  superlative  is  reached  ; 
nothing  can  be  worse. ^     Let  us  stand  firm 

1  Note  XIV. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  6/ 

on  the  Rock  of  Ages;  let  us  copy  the 
Uzzian's  patience,  and  respond  to  his  faith, 
**  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  Hveth."  We 
are  not  ashamed  to  sing  the  Nicene  Creed 
as  a  song  of  triumph  when  we  survey  the 
adversary  in  his  overthrow.  So  rose  the 
hymn  of  Moses  and  the  Lamb  by  the  Red 
Sea,  and  so  it  is  yet  sung  in  that  heaven  of 
heavens  which  was  unfolded  to  St.  John  in 
Patmos. 


68  HOLY    WRIT 


LECTURE    II. 

HIGHER     CRITICISM. 

It  is  not  to  intellectual  pride  that  God  is 
pleased  to  manifest  Himself  in  those  treas- 
ures of  wisdom  and  knowledge  which  are 
hid  in  Christ.  It  is  the  meek  whom  He 
promises  to  guide  in  judgment;  to  the 
lowly  He  reveals  His  way.  Not  that  the 
heights  or  the  depths  of  revealed  truth  re- 
quire less  than  the  noblest  e.fiforts  of  mind  to 
accept  and  measurably  to  understand  them. 
The  grandest  specimens  of  human  intellect 
have  been  framed  and  fashioned  by  the 
power  of  the  Gospel.  The  twain  of  our 
fellow-men  who  have  left  the  deepest 
impression  as  well  as  the  most  practically 
useful  influences  upon  mankind  are  un- 
doubtedly Moses  and  St.  Paul :  the  one  as 
meek  as  he  was  majestic  ;   the  other  as  self- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  69 

abasing  and  humble  as  he  was  masterly  and 
commanding.  No  need  to  contrast  the 
grand  series  of  men  of  genius  who,  as  their 
disciples,  have  swayed  the  thought  of  ages 
with  antagonists  whom  they  have  met,  de- 
feated, and  left  to  ignominy,  in  every  suc- 
cessive age.  Here  is  '*  the  Rock  of  Ages" 
on  the  one  hand,  there  are  the  innumera- 
ble wrecks  of  theory  and  transient  specula- 
tion on  the  other.  Look  on  this  picture 
and  on  that.  What  lives,  what  lasts,  what 
grows,  what  enlightens,  civilizes,  refines — 
all  this  is  on  one  side ;  distraction  and  de- 
struction are  on  the  other.  Modern  science, 
indeed,  asserts  itself  as  greater  than  Chris- 
tianity, and,  just  now,  is  proud  in  its  boast- 
ings that  it  supersedes  the  Gospel;  but 
where  is  there  any  science  except  in  Chris- 
tendom? Who  but  Christians,  in  every 
age,  have  been  pre-eminent  among  discov- 
erers and  masters  of  scientific  truth  ?  With 
men  whose  knowledge  "  puffed  them  up  " 
what  has  been   the   comparative  place  of 


70  HOLY    WRIT 

true  scientists  ?  With  Copernicus  and  New- 
ton and  Leibnitz  and  Descartes,  those 
stars  of  the  first  magnitude,  compare  even 
such  satelHtes  as  Halley  and  the  French 
encyclopaedists.  I  say,  then,  it  is  not  be- 
cause the  grandest  intellect  fails  to  find 
illumination  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ  that 
He  repels  the  profane  and  self-sufficient 
from  discipleship  in  His  school.  It  is  be- 
cause so  sublime  a  Master,  the  Maker  of  all 
things  visible  and  invisible,  who  was  from 
Everlasting,  and  who  upholds  all  things  by 
the  word  of  His  power,  cannot  consistently 
communicate  His  infinite  wisdom  and 
knowledge  except  to  those  who  feel  them- 
selves less  than  little  children  in  His  pres- 
ence. Not  to  the  "wise  and  prudent"  in 
self-sufficient  pride,  but  to  those  who  as 
mere  "  babes  "  enter  the  school  of  the  An- 
cient of  Days,  can  His  wisdom  be  imparted. 
"  If  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  doctrine." 

For  myself,  I  should  be  a  convert  to  the 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  7 1 

New  Testament,  as  the  result  of  examining, 
in  view  of  all  objections,  and  in  a  full  re- 
view of  his  personal  history,  the  single  tes- 
timony of  St.  Paul.     I  have  never  seen  any 
plausible  attempt  to  give  any  account  of 
the  appearance  of  such  a  character  in  hu- 
man annals,  other  than  that  which  he  has 
given  us  concerning  himself.     It  has  been 
found  utterly  impossible  to  refute  that  his- 
tory.    Even  Renan,  like  many  others  who 
have  attempted  to  rob  us  of  his  epistles, 
gives  us  back  enough  of  them  to  defeat  his 
whole  argument  and  to  enable  us  to  recon- 
struct the  canonical  text.     And  there  the 
Apostle  stands :   a  man  who  has  left  upon 
the  nations  and  the  ages  the  deepest  mark, 
and  who  has  impressed  himself  upon  intelli- 
gent  humanity   more    indelibly   than    any 
other  one  merely  human  who  ever  lived 
among  men. 

In  recent  days  there  appeared,  in  two 
massive   quartos,  a  Life  of   this  Apostle/ 
1  By  Conybeare  and  Howson,  London,  1854. 


']2  HOLY    WRIT 

which  not  only  embodies  his  writings,  but 
traces  every  step  of  his  travels,  sounds  the 
waters  to  identify  his  voyages,  exhibits 
coins  and  medals  that  confirm  his  story, 
and  illustrates  the  fidelity  of  his  companion 
St.  Luke,  even  as  to  statements  the  most 
minute,  or  apparently  accidental.  When  this 
work  appeared,  an  English  reviewer  ex- 
pressed himself  somewhat  as  follows  :  What 
a  phenomenon  is  here !  A  Jew  of  Tarsus 
who  lived  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  and 
was  put  to  death  ignominously  by  Roman 
law ;  one,  all  of  whose  writings  might  be 
printed  on  two  pages  of  a  London  news- 
paper, and  who  purposely  had  renounced 
all  claims  to  fame  and  worldly  recognition, 
is  not  the  less  remembered  and  celebrated, 
in  all  parts  of  the  world,  in  the  second  half 
of  this  nineteenth  century.  And  this  man 
furnishes  material  for  a  biography  like  this, 
in  costly  and  richly  illustrated  volumes ; 
material  supplied  from  world-wide  re- 
searches ;   its  cost  advanced  in  view  of  the 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  73 

world-wide  interest  still  felt  in  all  that  per- 
tains to  his  career.  Yes,  and  the  reviewer, 
when  he  speaks  of  this  nineteenth  century, 
might  justly  have  added — a  century  so 
numbered  and  named  and  known  in  all  the 
earth  because  this  man  Hved.  He  forced 
the  world  to  acknowledge  that  the  era  he 
introduced  to  Europe  must  be  regarded  as 
starting  with  Christ,  and  from  Him  only, 
as  the  era  of  regenerated  humanity.  Our 
Christian  computation  therefore  recognizes 
this  epoch  as  the  most  noteworthy  in  the 
history  of  mankind.  Observe,  also,  that 
this  biography  of  St.  Paul  meets  a  popular 
want.  The  market  value  of  literary  works 
is  a  test  which  our  age  loves  to  apply  ;  and 
the  fact  is  significant  that  thousands  of 
money  in  Germany,  France,  and  America, 
as  well  as  England,  have  been  invested  by 
the  trade  in  this  and  other  contemporary 
works  about  St.  Paul.  Hardly  had  the 
surprise  of  the  reviewer  been  expressed  at 
the  appearance  of  one   such  work,   when, 


74  HOLY    WRIT 

behold,  two  more  volumes,  equally  costly 
and  beautiful,  appeared  from  the  English 
press  :  a  work^  not  merely  gleaning  over  a 
stubble-field,  but  gathering  a  fresh  harvest 
of  illustration  and  exposition  from  similar 
research.  It  expounds  afresh  all  that  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  the  great  pupil 
of  Gamaliel,  of  the  rabid  persecutor  of 
St.  Stephen  and  other  believers,  who  be- 
came the  converted  Jew  and  the  glorious 
apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  Till  the  "  higher 
critics  "  can  explain  away  even  this  class  of 
evidences  that  the  Gospel  lives  and  flour- 
ishes, in  spite  of  all  that  their  agitations 
have  done  to  extinguish  it,  on  any  other 
theory  than  that  which  the  Gospel  itself 
commends  to  their  acceptance,  we  may 
calmly  go  on  our  way  rejoicing  that  we  are 
believers,  and  that  we  >  share  the  precious 
inheritance  of  the  disciples  at  Antioch,  who 
first  received  the  namfe  of  Christians. 

But  it  is  assumed  that  a  "  higher  criti- 

'  By  Lewin,  London,  1878. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  75 

cism  "  has  been  instituted,  which  is  destined 
to  revolutionize  the  time-honoured  convic- 
tions of  Christendom.  What  is  meant  by 
this  ''higher  criticism"?  Is  it  anything 
more  than  an  attempt  to  do,  in  another 
way,  what  the  illustrious  divines  of  Chris- 
tendom have  been  doing  ever  since  the 
days  of  Clement  of  Alexandria?  Is  it 
meant  to  imply  that  their  work  is  of 
"higher"  caste  than  the  textual  criticism 
and  work  of  Origen  ?  That  he  stuck  in  the 
bark,  while  this  goes  to  the  pith  of  Script- 
ure? As  appHed  to  the  Bible,  they  give 
us  a  very  confused  and  confusing  name 
for  a  very  intangible  thing.  No  agreement 
seems  established,  as  yet,  as  to  the  true 
definition  of  the  term ;  as  to  its  inclusive- 
ness  or  its  limitations ;  or  as  to  the  schools 
or  the  individuals  who  most  truly  and  suc- 
cessfully represent  it.  I  have  shown  that 
Nicolai  and  Bahrdt  anticipated  its  purpose, 
its  plan,  and  much  that  is  claimed  for  its 
achievements.      Its    practical   maxims    are 


76  HOLY    WRIT 

(i)  that  the  Bible  must  be  treated  Hke 
other  books,  and  (2)  that  as  the  result  of 
any  such  treatment  all  its  reputed  character 
disappears.  But  such  treatment  merits 
historical  inquiry  as  to  its  origin  and  its 
methods.      And  what  are  its  results? 

Similar  views  have  had  their  day  in  the 
field  of  classical  literature,  and  it  may  be 
instructive  to  observe  with  what  ill  success, 
even  there,  the  ignoble  processes  of  a  criti- 
cism inspired  by  such  maxims  have  been 
attended.  To  take  hold  of  any  writer  with 
whose  works  the  world  has  been  charmed 
for  ages,  for  the  purpose  of  degrading  him, 
denying  his  existence,  or  disputing  his  au- 
thorship— is  this  "  higher  criticism  "  ?  We 
have  been  amused  by  the  recent  efforts  of 
some  to  dethrone  Shakespeare  and  to  prove 
that  Francis  Bacon  was  the  playwright  who 
wrote  what  goes  by  Shakespeare's  name. 
Voltaire  disdained  this  same  Shakespeare ; 
but,  gifted  as  he  was  by  nature,  he  was 
simply  incapable  of  appreciating  the  lofty 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  "]"] 

genius  of  the  Bard  of  Avon,  and  was  not 
sufficiently  educated  in  English  to  compre- 
hend the  beauty  and  delicacy  of  our  lan- 
guage as  the  mighty  dramatist  employs  it. 
What,  then,  are  the  detractions  of  his  criti- 
cism worth?  It  is  a  canon  of  the  schools 
that  "  to  have  an  inward  affinity  with  the 
material  of  his  subject  is  inseparable  from 
the  character  of  a  true  critic."  ^  We  en- 
trust the  "  Iliad  "  to  a  Gladstone,  because  he 
loves  Homer,  and  is  nobly  capable  of  iden- 
tifying himself  with  the  spirit  of  so  great  a 
poet,  and  also  of  feeling,  as  well  as  weigh- 
ing, idioms  and  words,  and  of  imparting 
what  he  finds  in  the  beauties  of  his  style 
to  minds  less  Homeric  than  his  own.  But 
look  in  contrast  at  the  "higher  criticism" 
of  La  Motte,  who  attempted  to  turn  the 
*'  Iliad"  into  French  verse,  and  to  improve 
it  by  reducing  it  to  a  caricature,  and  pluck- 
ing it  as  a  cook  does  a  fowl.      His  version 

1  A  remark  of  Handeshagen,  in  "  Auberlen  on  Di- 
vine Revelation,"  p.  294  of  Edinburgh  translation. 


78  HOLY    WRIT 

was  pronounced  by  D'Alembert  a  mere 
skeleton  of  the  original  and  a  worse  trav- 
esty than  his  criticisms;  yet  D'Alembert, 
who  resents  such  a  process  when  Homer  is 
its  subject,  applauds  the  same  when  applied 
to  the  oracles  of  God. 

I  am  reminded  of  Dr.  Pusey's  remark 
about  *'  weak  defenders  "  of  the  Scripture 
canon  when  I  recur  to  the  Jesuit  Hardouin's 
defence  of  the  "Iliad."  His '' Apologet- 
ics," says  Mme.  Dacier,  "  damaged  Homer 
far  more  effectually  than  all  the  theories 
and  assaults  of  gainsay ers."  Bishop  Light- 
foot  suggests  what  must  be  the  ruinous  re- 
sult of  applying  to  the  classics  such  criticism 
as  is  now  inflicted  upon  the  Law  and  the. 
Prophets ;  but  this  same  Hardouin  tried  the 
experiment,  and  started  the  Germans,  who 
seldom  do  things  by  halves,  upon  the  revo- 
lutionizing of  all  literature,  sacred  and  pro- 
fane, after  his  example.  In  France,  Renan 
has  but  copied  the  formulas  of  Hardouin  in 
assailing  the  Evangelists.     The  learning  of 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  79 

the  Jesuit  was  as  great  as  his  use  of  it  was 
insane — if  indeed  there  was  not  method  in 
his  madness.  He  seems  to  have  acted  on 
a  secret  design  to  create  canons  of  criti- 
cism which  should  impair  the  influence  of 
the  Christian  Fathers;  for  upon  them  he 
turned  the  same  weapons  with  which  he 
affected  to  have  destroyed  almost  the  en- 
tire realm  of  Greek  literature,  including 
Aristotle  and  Plato.^  He  endeavoured  to 
persuade  the  world  that  Greek  monks  of 
the  thirteenth  century  had  created  most  of 
the  great  works  ascribed  to  antiquity.  This 
idea  once  accepted,  it  was  not  difficult  to 
get  rid  of  the  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,  and 
even  of  other  Greeks  whose  writings  refute 
the  papacy ;  and  thus  he  swept  away,  as 
he  imagined,  the  great  artillery  of  the  An- 
glicans and  the  Galileans,  while  his  more 
immediate  motive  seems  to  have  been  the 
extirpation  of  Jansenism. 

It   should   not   be   forgotten,   moreover, 

1  Note  XV. 


8o  HOLY    WRIT 

how  transient  has  been  the  apparent 
triumph  of  Niebuhr.  Following  in  the 
same  lines,  he  congratulated  himself  that 
he  had  entirely  destroyed  the  received  his- 
tory of  ancient  Rome,  with  the  credit  of 
Livy  and  other  noble  Latin  authors.  Far 
more  transient,  we  may  be  sure,  will  be  the 
mockery  of  popular  writers  who  scorn  the 
New  Testament  and  the  Old  without  a 
thousandth  part  of  Niebuhr's  acumen,  and 
with  nothing  of  the  apparent  probability  of 
his  theories.  Sciolists  indeed  are  they  w^ho 
dream  that  modern  critics  have  already 
abolished  Holy  Scripture  by  the  methods 
of  Hardouin  turned  upon  prophets  and 
apostles.^ 

Perhaps  we  may  best  satisfy  our- 
selves on  such  points  by  examining  those 
methods  in  a  practical  way.  I  am  so 
sure  that  multitudes  who  talk  about  this 
** higher  criticism"  have  no  idea  of  its  op- 
erations that  I  will  venture  to  enliven  the 

>  Note  XVI. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  8 1 

serious  considerations  which  I  am  trying  to 
enforce  by  a  Httle  sportive  imitation  of  this 
art  as  it  has  appeared  in  Germany  and  else- 
where, in  divers  forms  which  seem  to  have 
afforded  to  many  clever  men — and  to  fools 
innumerable  who  laugh  when  bad  men 
cavil — an  apology  for  unbelief  and  for  blas- 
phemy the  most  wanton  and  offensive.  It 
would  be  blasphemous  indeed,  and  offen- 
sive to  ears  polite,  to  furnish  specimens  of 
their  gross  assaults  upon  Holy  Writ.  But 
I  will  adopt  their  ideas  and  their  manner  of 
criticism  so  far  as  to  apply  them  to  a  work 
of  human  genius.  You  will  recall  the  fine 
Pindaric  ode  of  Gray,  founded  upon  the 
massacre  of  the  Welsh  bards  by  the  first 
Edward.  It  is  cast  into  the  form  of  proph- 
ecy, and  exemplifies  the  root-principles  of 
inspired  prophecy  when  it  rises  into  rhap- 
sody. Isaiah,  for  example,  when  he  breaks 
into  those  outlines  of  the  far-off  Gospel 
which  everybody  recognizes  when  he  hears 
the  sublime  oratorio  of  the  Messiah,  seizes 


82  HOLY    WRIT 

upon  symbols  or  incidents  or  figures  which 
have  little  meaning  till  their  force  is  found 
in  the  Evangelists.  Yet  these  tokens,  all 
assembled  in  the  events  of  the  Gospel,  as- 
sure us  that  he  foresaw  (dimly  at  times,  but 
most  clearly  at  others)  the  Babe  of  Bethle- 
hem, the  Man  of  Sorrows,  the  crucified 
Redeemer,  and  the  risen  Lord  and  God  of 
Christians.  Now,  this  so-called  "  higher 
criticism "  undertakes  to  deny  the  whole 
history  of  Isaiah  and  his  writings ;  or,  ac- 
cepting these  in  diluted  forms,  it  proceeds 
to  strip  his  sublime  lyrics  of  all  their  mean- 
ing, and  to  find  their  entire  interpretation 
in  contemporary  circumstances  compara- 
tively mean  and  insignificant. 

To  proceed  in  like  manner  with  Gray 
and  his  ode,  let  me  take  for  example  his 
assumed  forecast  of  the  history  and  fate 
of  Richard  II.,  with  which  the  admirable 
tragedy  of  Shakespeare  makes  us  familiar, 
just  as  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke  lends  itself 
to  the   interpretation  of  Isaiah,  or  of  the 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  83 

oratorio  I  have  mentioned.  This  fine  imi- 
tation of  Pindaric  verse  is  known  to  have 
been  the  production  of  Thomas  Gray,  for- 
merly of  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge. 
Impersonating  a  Welsh  bard,  the  poet  in 
bold  Pindaric  strophes  forecasts  prophet- 
ically the  Hnes  of  the  Plantagenets  and 
Tudors,  and  sketches  very  strikingly  the 
progress  of  English  history.  There  is  one 
strophe  of  the  ode,  or  a  fragment  at  least, 
which  I  will  now  read  with  the  respect  due 
to  so  grand  a  conception  of  the  subject: 

"  Fill  high  the  sparkling  bowl, 
The  rich  repast  prepare, 
Reft  of  a  crown,  he  yet  may  share  the  feast, 
Close  by  the  regal  chair. 
Fell  Thirst  and  Famine  scowl 
A  baleful  smile  upon  the  baffled  guest. 
Heard  ye  the  din  of  battle  bray? 
Lance  to  lance,  and  horse  to  horse. 
Long  years  of  havoc  hold  their  destined  course, 
And  thro'   the   kindred  squadrons    mow  their 
way." 

We  may  divide  this  strophe  into  two 
parts,  the  first  of  which  pictures  the  fate  of 
King  Richard  II.,  who,  as   contemporary 


84  HOLY    WRIT 

writers  tell  us,  was  starved  to  death  soon 
after  his  deposition  by  Bolingbroke,  the 
first  prince  of  the  house  of  Lancaster.  By 
an  abrupt  transition,  the  prophecy,  in  the 
striking  passage  that  follows,  glances  in 
distant  vision  at  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
These  allusions,  or  references,  may  seem 
obscure  ;  the  transition  too  abrupt,  passing 
to  the  wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  with 
nothing  interposed  to  indicate  that  the 
vastly  important  reigns  of  Henry  IV.  and 
Henry  V.  intervene.  But  these  daring 
liberties  are  taken  in  all  rhapsodies  of  the 
kind,  and  beautifully  harmonize  with  the 
idea  of  a  seer,  or  prophet,  who  through  the 
vista  of  ages  descries,  confusedly  enough, 
as  in  a  dream,  the  shifting  scenes  of  the 
future,  and  then  breaks  out  into  utterances, 
like  the  Sibyl's,  and  still  more  confusedly 
pictures  what  he  has  seen  in  his  vision. 
Now,  that  this  is  genuine  criticism  we  are 
well  assured,  for  Mr.  Gray  gave  the  ode  to 
the  public  without  notes;   but  when  even 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  8$ 

the  learned  complained  of  its  obscurity,  he 
supplied  annotations  himself.  At  the  same 
time  he  apologized  for  yielding  so  far  to  thfe 
advice  of  friends,  because  (he  added)  "  he 
had  felt  too  much  respect  for  the  under- 
standing of  his  readers  to  take  that  liberty," 
previously.  And  here  I  must  remark  that 
could  that  incomparable  rhapsodist  the 
prophet  Isaiah  rise  from  the  dead  and  sup- 
ply annotations  to  the  ninth  or  the  fifty- 
third  chapters  of  his  prophecy,  not  to  speak 
of  many  others,  he  might  say,  hke  Mr. 
Gray,  that  with  readers  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  *'  he  had  too 
much  respect  for  their  understanding  to 
imagine  any  annotations  to  be  needed." 
In  fact,  he  who  studies  Isaiah  critically 
should  know  something  of  the  odes  of  Pin- 
dar first ;  for  they  clearly  suggest  the  man- 
ner of  ancient  poets,  in  their  abrupt  transi- 
tions, and  yet  more  in  their  grasping,  here 
and  there,  of  symbols  and  minute  incidents, 
by  which  they  identify  their  subject  with 


86  HOLY    WRIT 

"  the  past,  the  distant,  or  the  future."  So 
the  Greek  dramatists  in  their  choral  pieces ; 
and  so  Mr.  Gray,  closely  imitating  Pindar, 
throws  light  on  the  Psalmist's  prophetic 
rapture ;  his  distant  view  of  things  he  did 
not  himself  understand :  for  example,  one 
which  disclosed  a  Sufferer  crying  out  Lama 
sabacthani,  with  hands  and  feet  pierced, 
and  with  His  murderers  "  parting  His  gar- 
ments "  among  them,  and  ''  casting  lots  on 
His  vesture." 

But  now  let  me  aspire  to  the  dignity  of 
"higher  criticism"  and  treat  Gray's  ode 
just  as  the  higher  critics  have  treated  David 
and  Daniel  and  Isaiah  and  all  the  prophets, 
who,  as  St.  Peter  tells  us,  **  spake  before- 
hand of  the  sufferings  of  Christ "  in  such 
exaltation  or  rapture  of  their  faculties  that 
they  were  obliged,  afterward,  to  study  and 
search  their  own  writings  to  discover  "  what 
and  what  manner  of  time  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  which  was  in  them  did  signify."  I 
proceed  to  do  entire  justice  to  the  "  higher 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  87 

criticism "  of  the  school  of  Strauss  and 
Paulus,  and  their  recent  admirers  in  Amer- 
ica and  England,  by  the  following  treat- 
ment of  a  fragment  of  the  ode  we  have 
been  considering. 

REVIEWAL. 

These  verses,  as  is  well  known,  have 
been  generally  attributed  to  the  genius  of 
Thomas  Gray,  and  as  such  are  endeared 
to  the  itniversity  which  glories  in  his  name 
and  reputation.  But  for  the  credit  of  the 
university,  as  well  as  of  so  excellent  a 
poet,  we  think  we  can  prove  that  this  is 
a  mere  fiction.  We  shall  treat  them  by 
the  remorseless  laws  of  scientific  criticism, 
just  as  we  would  treat  a  less  popular  poem, 
and  that  in  spite  of  a  painful  conviction 
that  we  shall  not  be  thanked  by  the  uni- 
versity for  our  fidelity  to  facts  as  they  un- 
doubtedly are.  For  on  the  face  of  it,  this 
"  ode  "  is  in  such  absolute  contrast  with 
the  style  and  the  well-known  tastes  of  Mr. 
Gray  that  we  must  present  the  university 
with  this  dilemma :  either  he  never  wrote 
the  ''  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,"  or 
he  is  not  the  author  of  a  line  of  this  turgid 
and  pompous  array  of  obscure  allusions 
and  far-fetched  figures.      Gray,  as  is  well 


88  HOLY    WRIT 

known,  was  a  man  of  fastidious  tastes;  a 
calm,  contemplative  genius,  a  master  of 
English,  delighting  in  country-life,  and 
fond  of  lingering  among  graves  and  epi- 
taphs, listening  to  the  owl  under  ivy- 
mantled  tov^^ers.  Hence  he  confined  him- 
self to  sweet  idyllic  verse,  and  his  poetry 
flows  like  the  smooth  meandering  Avon, 
in  no  respect  like  the  rushing  and  broken 
rapids  of  the  Dove,  in  Derbyshire.  His 
thought  is  unartificial,  true  to  nature  and 
to  his  own  habits  of  life,  and  takes  form  in 
expressions  truly  Arcadian.  That  this  at- 
tempted imitation  of  the  Boeotian  Pindar — 
irregular,  abrupt,  cataclysmic,  in  short,  not 
to  say  bombastic  and  devoid  of  literary 
merit — could  possibly  have  proceeded 
from  the  same  pen  to  which  we  owe  the 
incomparable  '*  Elegy,"  is  so  preposterous 
that  we  can  only  liken  it  to  the  exploded 
fancy  that  the  same  pen  wrote  alike  the 
Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse.  We 
have  no  hesitation  in  dismissing  it  as  an 
effusion  of  Gray's ;  in  fact,  we  are  forced 
to  conclude  with  the  acute  Professor  v. 
Diinkel,  sustained  by  the  profound  Dr. 
Kopfnicker,  that  the  occurrence  of  words 
and  phrases  that  are  not  English  is  so  fre- 
quent in  the  entire  performance  that  it 
never  could  have  proceeded  from  an  edu- 
cated Englishman.  To  this  idea  the  keen 
and    penetrating   intellect    of    v.    Lumpen 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  89 

has  lent  his  decisive  judgment,  and  he 
cites,  in  corroboration,  the  word  hauberk; 
the  expressions  7'egal  chair  and  sable  zuar- 
rior;  squadron,  or  a  fleet,  for  a  crowd,  and 
the  mixt  figure  of  mozving  squadrons,  an 
unquestionable  betrayal  of  the  forger's  per- 
formance. It  occurs  to  him  that  the 
"  ode  "  is  a  mere  cento,  so  clumsily  com- 
posed that  the  sutures,  or  indications  of 
joiner-work,  are  self-evident  to  any  com- 
petent critic.  Some  lines  are  less  ignoble, 
but  not  one  would  suggest  the  authorship 
of  a  scholar,  much  less  of  one  endowed 
with  the  accurate  scholarship  of  Gray. 
The  sagacious  results  to  which,  after  in- 
credible research,  the  authorities  aforesaid 
have  arrived,  appear  to  us  conclusive. 
"  The  Beggar's  Opera  "  of  an  inferior  poet, 
Mr.  Gay,  is  itself  made  up  of  songs  and 
snatches  from  old  street-ballads;  and  he, 
most  probably,  in  a  mere  moment  of  droll- 
ery, might  have  thrown  off  this  effusion. 
It  is  a  very  life-like  imitation  of  some 
blind  beggar  in  London,  singing  under 
balconies,  but  trembling  lest  he  should  be 
arrested  by  the  police.  Yet  it  may  be  re- 
marked that  the  names  of  Gray  and  Gay 
differ  by  a  single  letter  only,  and  by  a 
ludicrous  but  very  natural  blunder  of  the 
bookseller,  if  indeed  it  were  not  inten- 
tional, he  was  able  to  palm  off  upon  the 
public  the  work  of  a  less  skilful  hand  as 


90  HOLY    WRIT 

the  production  of  the  author  of  the 
**  Elegy,"  and  to  date  it  at  a  period  when 
Gray  was  in  the  height  of  fashion  and  pop- 
ularity. With  these  remarks,  after  intro- 
ducing the  learned  annotations  of  Kopf- 
nicker,  we  shall  conclude  by  restoring  the 
fragment  to  its  original  form  (that  of  the 
street-ballad),  only  regretting  that,  of 
course,  we  cannot  preserve  the  rhyme  and 
structure  of  ballad  versification  which  Gay 
had  before  him  when  he  patched  up  the 
strophe : 

"  Fill  high  the  sparkling  bowl, 
The  rich  repast  prepare." 

1.  Sparklijig  bowl.  Bowls  are  not  used 
for  sparkling  wines.  The  original  word 
was  undoubtedly  steaming,  which  at  once 
suggests  the  bowl  of  hot  soup  craved  by 
the  appetite  of  a  hungry  crowder,  or  singer 
of  street-ballads :   see  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 

2.  Rich  repast.  In  mere  drollery,  Gay, 
or  we  may  say  the  forger,  substitutes  these 
words  for  "  comfortable  meal,"  which 
agrees  with  the  preceding  suggestion. 

II. 

"  Reft  of  a  crown,  he  yet  may  share  the  feast, 
Fast  by  the  regal  chair." 

3.  Reft  of  a  ci'ozvn.  Pompous  words, 
which  probably  gave  the  first  hint  for  the 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  9 1 

fanciful  whim  that  here  was  a  poem  on 
English  historical  subjects,  and  that  this 
stanza  intimates  the  death,  by  starvation, 
of  some  English  sovereign.  All  this  is  a 
laughable  blunder;  for  the  original,  no 
doubt,  was  a  very  natural  lament  of  the 
beggar  over  the  **  crown  "  (or  piece  of  five 
shillings)  of  which  he  had  been  *'  bereft," 
or  rather  robbed,  in  the  streets.  More 
probably  the  beggar  had  lost  a  half-crown 
only,  as  Diinkel  ingeniously  points  out; 
for  beggars  rarely  gather  so  much,  and 
therefore  tivo-and-sixpeiice  would  be  the 
more  legitimate  reading,  unquestionably. 
Robbed^f  this  sum — the  idea  is — he  may 
yet  earn  his  bowl  of  soup. 

4.  Fast  by  the  regal  chair.  The  in- 
genuity of  Flickschneider  has  decided  the 
Masoretic  controversy  here  against  the 
superstition  of  rabbins  who  adhere  to 
close  as  the  true  reading.  We  prefer  his 
hardihood  to  their  minute  and  toilsome 
deference  for  old  MSS.  As  for  regal  chair, 
it  is  bombastic  verbiage  for  the  well-known 
"King's  Bench";  or,  as  the  research  of 
one  of  our  greatest  critics  has  proved,  the 
reference  is  to  a  noted  chop-house  near 
King's-Be.nch-Walk,  Temple  Gardens.  The 
*'  crown  "  in  the  preceding  verse  suggested 
a  reference  to  the  tlirone  in  this.  Nobody 
ever  referred  to  the  Queen's  throne  at  West- 


92  HOLY    WRIT 

minster  by  such  a  phrase  as  "  regal  chair" 
but  an  American  who  calls  his  pinchbeck 
trinkets  Regalia.  And  what  but  the  most 
dogged  adhesion  to  foregone  conclusions 
could  make  any  one  in  his  senses  give  such 
a  stilted  phrase  any  higher  significance  than 
that  we  have  assigned?  Can  even  a  fool 
imagine  that  a  king  of  England  ever  ate 
his  dinner  seated  on  his  throne — nay, 
fastened  in  it,  as  this  critical  text  would 
imply?  All  this  from  a  beggar's  longing 
for  his  favourite  seat  in  a  London  chop- 
house  ! 

III. 

"  Fell  Thirst  and  Famine  scowl 

A  baleful  smile  upon  the  baffled  gutst." 

5.  Fell  Thirst  and  Famine  scowl. 
These  lines  are  an  interpolation  introduced 
to  sustain  the  idea  of  a  starving  prince. 
What  have  Thirst  and  Famine  to  do  here, 
if  we  retain  those  readings  sparkling  bowl 
and  rich  repast?  Gay's  sportive  wit  must 
not  be  charged  with  this.  Some  forger, 
improving  on  Gay,  in  order  to  complete 
the  whim  about  "  King  Richard  and  his 
death  by  starvation,"  has  inserted  it  here, 
where  it  makes  mere  nonsense  of  the  pre- 
vious reference  to  rich  viands  and  bright 
wines — phrases  which  in  fact  describe  a 
surfeit.  It  is  now  known  that  Richard 
was  assassinated  by  Sir  Piers  of  Exon.     If 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  93 

the  lines,  as  commonly  received,  point  to 
the  death  of  any  king  of  England,  we  must 
revert  to  the  Normans,  therefore,  for  a 
solution :  it  is  true  that  Henry  I.  died  of  a 
surfeit  of  lampreys. 


IV. 

Heard  ye  the  din  of  battle  bray? 
Lance  to  lance,  and  horse  to  horse.' 


6.  Heard  ye  the  din  of  battle  bray  ? 
The  word  bray  is  here  cleverly  introduced 
for  obvious  reasons.  In  short,  the  braying 
of  a  costermonger's  donkey  interrupts  the 
beggar's  lament  for  his  half-crown  and  his 
longings  for  his  bowl  of  soup.  Somewhat 
too  boldly  Lumpen  amends  this  line  thus : 

"  Heard  ye  that  bray? — the  dinner-bottles,"  etc. 

Where  the  beggar's  reference  to  bottles  and 
his  dinner  is,  indeed,  more  natural  than 
any  appetite  for  battles.  It  is  supposed  to 
be  an  exclamation,  broken  by  the  approach 
of  poHce.  We  dismiss  it,  reluctantly,  how- 
ever, as  not  supported  by  context.  But 
think  of  any  one  in  his  senses  taking  this 
as  a  reference  to  the  wars  of  York  and 
Lancaster ! 

7.  Lance  to  lance  and  horse  to  horse. 
The  lance  is  poetry  for  a  catchpoll's  staff; 
but  the  rest  is  plain  enough.     What  with 


94  HOLY    WRIT 

braying  and  singing,  a  crowd  collects  in 
the  street,  and  the  beggar  thinks  he  hears 
the  horse-guards  coming  up  from  White- 
hall or  Scotland-yard  to  disperse  the  mob. 


"  Long  years  of  havoc  hold  their  destined  course, 
And  thro'  the  kindred  squadrons  mow  their  way." 

He  naturally  "  moves  on "  and  "  thro' 
the  kindred  squadrons  mows  his  way." 
Though  here  we  must  add  that  for  squad- 
rons (which  applies  to  the  sea,  and  could 
only  be  accounted  for  by  a  mob  of  sailors) 
we  suppose  the  true  reading  should  be  a 
fleet,  suggested  by  the  near  neighbourhood 
of  Fleet  Street.  The  word  mow  is  a  mere 
blunder  for  move.  We  suggest,  therefore, 
that  he  "  moves  away  "  in  a  natural  effort 
to  escape  arrest,  and  the  ignominious  close 
of  his  errant  music  behind  locks  and 
bars. 

If  in  this  simulated  review  of  a  work  of 
genius  I  seem  to  have  trifled,  I  confess  it 
not  without  compunctions  ;  for  I  revere  the 
poetic  art  and  its  masters  so  profoundly  that 
to  deal  with  them  after  such  manner,  even 
for  a  laudable  purpose,  strikes  me  as  in  a 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  95 

measure  profane.  But  my  purpose  is  to 
ask  you,  in  all  conscience,  whether  that  can 
be  called  "higher  criticism"  in  any  just 
sense  which  trifles  in  such  style  with  the 
sublime  literature  of  the  sacred  Scriptures 
— with  the  historic  simplicity,  the  transpar- 
ent sincerity  of  narrative,  the  august  juris- 
prudence of  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  in- 
comparable poetry  of  Job  or  Isaiah,  and 
the  Psalmist?  If  my  imitation  of  such  at- 
tempts to  '*  treat  the  Bible  like  any  other 
book  "  is  a  caricature,  still  it  is  legitimately 
wrought.  It  is  a  likeness  nevertheless ;  the 
features  cannot  fail  to  be  recognized  as 
characteristic ;  its  lights  and  shades  bring 
into  strong  effect  none  other  than  what  they 
delight  to  claim  as  the  original  and  striking 
mannerism  of  their  school.  So  Voltaire 
taught  them  to  blaspheme  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, while  he  compliments  it  sarcastically 
as  well  worth  reading.  So  Renan,  his  more 
learned  and  less  filthy  disciple,  deals  with 
the  Gospels.    But  it  is  in  the  Biblical  com- 


96  HOLY    WRIT 

mentaries  of  professed  Christians,  among 
Germans  and  Hollanders,  that  such  criti- 
cism may  be  found;  works  of  men  who 
claim  to  be  theologians  and  divines,  while 
they  put  forth  the  hands  of  Uzzah  to  the 
Ark  of  God.  From  **  hfigher  critics  "  like 
these  we  may  appeal  to  the  highest  criti- 
cism. From  "modern  thought,"  which,  if 
it  be  only  modern,  must  be  still  fluctuating 
and  unsettled,  we  turn  to  the  Thought  of 
Ages;  thought  which  the  centuries  have 
tried,  and  which  survives  and  is  yet  solid 
and  unshaken.  For  true  criticism  knows 
not  only  what  is  due  to  the  oracles  of  the 
Most  High,  but,  even  to  the  same  books, 
if  only  because  they  have  been  counted 
such  by  the  noblest  masters  of  human 
thought  ever  since  the  Uzzian  gave  us  the 
oldest  and  the  sublimest  poetry  that  has 
ever  proceeded  from  the  head  and  heart 
of  a  man.  Reflect  how  the  refinement  of 
a  heathen  prescribed  for  the  cave  of  Cumae 
that  canon  of  decent  respect  for  even  re- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  97 

puted  sanctity — ''Avaunt,  avaunt,  ye  pro- 
fane." ^ 

The  old  herbalists  inscribed  on  speci- 
mens of  certain  humble  but  sweet-scented 
flowers  a  caution  against  vulgar  inspection : 
"  Turn  away,  pig,  our  savour  is  not  for 
swine."  And  I  have  been  reminded  of  this 
by  the  remark  of  a  devout  Hindu,  who 
doubts  whether  Europeans  generally  have 
faculties  sufficiently  delicate  for  the  full  ap- 
preciation of  the  New  Testament.^  EngHsh 
missionaries,  he  confesses,  have  roused  the 
dormant  energies  of  the  Hindus  and  stim- 
ulated them  to  a  ''  religious  activity  which, 
as  the  result,  characterizes  every  part  of 
India."  But  Mozoomdar  discovers  that 
**  Christ  was  an  Asiatic,"  and  responds  to 
the  eloquence  of  his  Gamaliel,  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen,  who  taught  him,  as  (he 
thinks)  no  Occidental  teacher  could,  to  love 


1  iEneid,  Book  VI.  259. 

2  "The  Oriental  Christ,"  by  Mozoomdar.      Boston, 
1882. 


98  HOLY    WRIT 

the  "  lamb-like  meekness  and  simplicity  of 
Christ,  His  tenderness  and  humility,  His 
heart  full  of  mercy  and  forgiving  kindness, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  His  firm,  resolute, 
unyielding  adherence  to  truth."  Smitten 
with  the  moral  beauty  and  infinite  perfec- 
tions of  His  character  and  His  doctrines, 
this  poor  Hindu  feels  that  He  is  more 
than  human,  and  bears  his  witness  to  the 
power  of  this  "  Oriental  Christ  "  to  meet  all 
the  longings  and  wants  of  human  nature, 
as  no  other  can,  especially  in  reaching 
our  sense  of  sin  and  our  reachings- forth 
after  regeneration  and  eternal  life.  "  I  am 
proud  that  I  am  an  Asiatic,"  he  says,  ''for 
Jesus  and  His  disciples  were  Asiatics.  .  .  . 
And  is  it  not  true  that  an  Asiatic  can  read 
the  imageries  and  allegories  of  the  Gospel 
with  greater  interest  and  a  fuller  perception 
of  their  force  and  beauty  than  Europeans  ?" 
In  short,  he  claims  our  divine  Lord  as  in  a 
special  manner  belonging  to  the  Orientals 
first,  and  after  that  to  other  Gentiles,  and 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  99 

by  this  magnetic  idea  he  supposes  all  India 
even  now  feels  itself  drawn  to  Christ,  and 
will  respond  rapidly  and  more  fully  at  no 
distant  day.^  I  have  been  greatly  moved 
by  the  force  of  this  argument,  when  I  note 
in  contrast  the  coarser  instincts  and  mate- 
rializing thought  of  some  among  us  out  of 
whom  German  pessimism  is  making  con- 
verts to  Buddha ;  who  glorify  "  the  Light 
of  Asia,"  while  they  close  their  eyes  to  the 
Light  of  the  World.  No  wonder  that  such 
seem  given  over  to  ''a  reprobate  mind." 
Mozoomdar,  on  the  other  hand,  reminds 
me  of  one  *'  who  was  not  far  from  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,"  and  of  one  of  whom  it 
is  written,  "  When  Jesus  saw  him  He 
loved  him."  And  when  I  have  gathered 
fresh  ideas  of  the  Evangelists  from  this 
gentle  pagan,  and  have  perceived  fresh 
fragrance  exhaled  from  the  Gospel  texts 
pressed  by  his  reverent  hand,  I  have  felt 
how  mean  and  barren  in  comparison  is  this 

1  On  the  Brahmo  Somaj.     See  Note  XVII. 


lOO  HOLY    WRIT 

"  higher  criticism,"  which  degrades  all  that 
it  touches,  and  makes  the  green  herb  and 
the  fruitage  of  gardens  wither  where  it  in- 
trudes. Yes,  and  I  comprehend,  with  new 
emotions,  something  deep  and  far-reaching 
in  those  words  of  that  glorious  Lover  of 
men's  souls  to  whom  we  owe  our  Redemp- 
tion— when  He  rejoiced  in  spirit  and  ex- 
claimed, "  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth,  that  Thou  hast  hid  these 
things  from  the  wise  and  prudent  and  hast 
revealed  them  unto  babes."  No  wonder 
that  this  '*  Oriental  Christ "  called  a  little 
child  and  set  him  amid  the  apostles  as  their 
example.  No  wonder  that  the  great  Apos- 
tle of  the  Gentiles  gives  us  as  a  canon  of 
faith  and  interpretation  his  majestic  axiom, 
**  He  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that 
He  is,  and  that  He  is  a  rewarder  of  them 
that  diligently  seek  Him." 

The  only  competent  critic  of  the  Script- 
ures, then,  we  must  infer,  is  the  scholar 
who  to  "  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent  "  unites 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  lOI 

the  spirit  which  finds  its  emblem  in  the 
harmless  and  affectionate  turtle-dove.  He 
loves  the  subject  of  his  task  next  to  its 
Author,  whom  he  loves  supremely.  He 
is  one  who  scrutinizes  and  clears  the  text 
with  a  holy  jealousy,  guarding  its  integrity 
and  taking  a  holy  care  not  to  mar  and 
mangle  it,  lest  it  should  be  reduced  to 
nothingness,  on  pretext  of  analysis ;  who 
exults  in  illustrating  its  beauties,  in  disclos- 
ing its  harmonies  with  history  and  with 
the  habits  and  thoughts  of  its  times ;  and, 
above  all,  who  labours  to  commend  it  afresh 
to  successive  generations,  as  the  treasure 
above  all  price,  which,  even  for  its  lesser 
merits,  **  the  world  should  not  willingly  let 
die."  And  when  I  speak  of  its  lesser  mer- 
its, I  refer  to  merits  which,  even  so,  have 
no  parallel  in  all  literature.  If  we  would 
comprehend  the  history  of  the  earth  itself, 
we  can  find  in  no  other  cosmogony  any 
approach  to  the  lofty  ideal  of  Moses ;  not 
one  that  even  apparently  conflicts  so  little 


I02  HOLY    WRIT 

with  all  that  science  has  demonstrated,  or 
that  has  guided  science  itself  to  such  solu- 
tions of  difficulties  as,  in  spite  of  the  pru- 
dent reticence  of  the  author,  are  more  than 
hinted.  This  Book  alone  gives  us  any  clue  to 
the  patriarchal  ages  and  habits  of  mankind ; 
it  alone  hands  down  to  us  any  plausible 
account  of  the  origin  of  language,  of  races, 
of  nations,  and  of  the  course  of  empire. 
Apart  from  its  instructions  the  land  of 
Egypt  with  all  its  monuments  would  be  to 
us  unintelligible ;  and  the  Hebrew  people, 
scattered  among  all  kingdoms  and  peoples 
of  the  earth,  would  remain  an  inscrutable 
enigma.  Of  its  sublime  poetry ;  its  elo- 
quent simplicity  of  narrative  and  its  gold- 
en chronicles  of  antiquity ;  its  grandeur  as 
giving  us,  in  fundamental  principles,  a  par- 
agon of  legislation ;  its  isolated  perfection 
as  a  philosophy  of  morals  ;  and  its  yet  more 
majestic  solitude  of  glory,  as  presenting  the 
image  of  God  perfectly  realized  in  a  Sec- 
ond Adam — why  should  I  speak?     Have 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  IO3 

not  the  world's  own  glorified  philosophers, 
thinkers,  poets,  legislators,  scholars,  artists, 
authors  of  every  class,  in  short,  vied  with 
the  preachers  of  Christ  in  confessing  as 
much  as  any  of  these  ever  claimed  ?  In- 
imitable in  its  character,  its  structure,  and 
its  materials,  and  surpassing  all  that  has 
been  otherwise  attempted  or  achieved  by 
the  wit  or  the  wisdom  of  man,  have  not 
bitter  infidels  themselves  been  awed  into 
deference,  or  moved,  as  if  out  of  respect 
to  themselves  and  to  show  themselves  men 
of  taste  and  of  judgment,  to  eulogize  Holy 
Writ,  as,  if  not  the  Book  of  God,  still  the 
god  of  books?  It  is  Rousseau  who  re- 
bukes those  who  compare  the  Crucified  of 
Calvary  with  him  who  drank  the  hemlock 
in  Athens.  It  is  Victor  Hugo  who  says 
of  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels  1 : 

"  Vous,  qui  pleurez,  venez  a  ce  Dieu — car  II  pleure; 
Vous  qui  souffrez,  venez  a  Lui — car  II  guerit ; 
Vous  qui  tremblez,  venez  a  Lui — car  II  sourit ; 
Vous  qui  passez,  venez  a  Lui — car  II  demeure." 

'  I  do  not  class  Hugo  with  infidels. 


I04  HOLY    WRIT 

Now,  it  is  such  a  book  that  we,  in  our 
generation,  behold,  in  the  name  of  "  higher 
criticism,"  mangled  and  rent,  degraded  and 
despoiled,  and,  like  its  Incarnate  Author, 
hung  up  to  be  scoffed  at  and  mocked,  and 
**  crucified  between  thieves." 

But  let  me  turn  to  authors  who  represent 
the  highest  criticism  in  contrast  with  those 
of  this  boasted  '*  higher  criticism,"  which 
the  popular  mind  has  been  led  to  suppose 
exhaustively  thorough  in  its  examination 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  subversive  of  their 
claims  upon  faith  and  reason.  When  Ger- 
many was  regaining  its  hold  upon  Revela- 
tion after  its  ages  of  unrest,  and  rejecting 
in  its  pulpits  what  was  still  the  fruitless 
experiments  of  its  schools,  there  arose  in 
England,  to  the  astonishment  of  mankind, 
a  set  of  men,  reacting  from  the  follies  of 
Newman  and  Manning,  who  could  do  no 
better  than  pick  up  the  rags  and  tatters  of 
the  Teutonic  Babel,  and  parade  them- 
selves in  such  array  as    modern    thinkers 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  IO5 

and  critics.  But,  as  it  has  ever  been  in 
England,  where  a  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Church  has  never  failed  to  raise  up  chosen 
sons  for  such  emergencies,  this  self-assert- 
ing and  superficial  faction  was  met  and 
mastered  by  one  who  had  passed  through 
all  the  mists  and  fogs  of  Germany  before 
they  were  born ;  one  to  whom  nobody 
denied  the  qualification  of  scholarship  the 
most  thorough  and  complete,  as  well  as  of 
personal  experience  and  contact  with  Ger- 
man savants  by  whom  his  own  religious 
thought  had  been  sadly  leavened  in  his 
early  days.i  The  attempt  to  import  "  Illu- 
minism "  into  England  thirty  years  ago 
was  successfully  met  by  Dr.  Pusey,  who 
calmly  remarked  that  he  found  nothing 
new  in  the  book  "  Essays  and  Reviews  "  ; 
nothing  with  which  older  men  had  not 
been  familiar  forty  years  previously,  that 
is   to   say,  in   the   second   and   third   dec- 

1  "  Daniel  the  Prophet "  (see  p.  xxv.,  preface),  Lon- 
don, 1864. 


I06  HOLY    WRIT 

ades  of  this  century.^  His  acute  remarks 
strengthen  my  own  position  in  the  former 
lecture.  He  says  of  these  *'  essayists  "  : 
**  They  asserted  Httle  distinctly,  attempted 
to  prove  less,  but  threw  doubts  on  every- 
thing. They  took  for  granted  that  the 
ancient  faith  had  been  overthrown.  .  .  . 
They  ignored  the  fact  that  every  deeper 
tendency  of  thought  or  each  more  solid 
learning  had  at  last  done  away  with  some- 
thing shallow,  something  adverse  to  faith. 
They  practically  ignored  all  criticism  which 
was  not  subservient  to  unbelief."  These 
writers,  in  short,  would  have  attracted  little 
notice  had  they  not  been  clergymen  of  the 
Church,  sworn  to  '*  banish  and  drive  away  " 
precisely  what  they  were  introducing.  Dr. 
Pusey  adds  :  "  Had  they  ventured,  in  plain 
terms,  to  deny  half  the  truths  as  to  the 
Bible  or  the  faith  which  they  suggested  to 
others  to  deny,  they  would  have  aroused 
the  indignation  of  the  whole  believing  peo- 

'  Note  XVIII. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  I07 

pie  of  England."  Bad  morals  generally 
give  offensive  warning  of  corruption  in 
matters  of  doctrine.  1 

Pusey  was  a  dangerous  antagonist  for 
such  men  to  wake  up,  especially  when  they 
vaunted  the  attacks  of  "  recent  criticism  " 
upon  the  Book  of  Daniel  as  a  triumphant 
disproof  of  its  authenticity.  This  challenge 
was  accepted  by  the  learned  doctor ;  noth- 
ing could  have  pleased  him  better.  He 
first  laid  his  hand  on  the  treatment  which 
the  Pentateuch  had  received  from  David- 
son,^ who  adopted  the  maxims  of  the  school 
of  unbelief  as  to  miracles  and  prophecy, 
and  effectually  stripped  him  of  his  armour, 
convicting  both  him,  and  the  Germans  from 
whom  he  quotes,  of  **  ignorance  of  the  ele- 
ments of  Hebrew."  His  ignorance  of  the 
Church  Fathers  was  shown  to  be  not  less 
astounding,  and  what  he  professes  to  quote 
from  Ewald  is  not  found  in  Ewald  at  all. 

»  Note  XIX. 

^  A  prominent  sectarian  divine.    See  Pusey's  Preface. 


I08  HOLY    WRIT 

In  Dr.  Davidson's  series  of  opponents  of  the 
authenticity  of  Daniel  there  is  a  vacntim  of 
1400  years,  "  from  Porphyry  the  heathen 
to  ColHns  the  deist."  After  exposing  the 
compromises  with  which  this  teacher  would 
save  something  out  of  the  Pentateuch  and 
the  prophets,  Dr.  Pusey  shows  that  in  the 
case  of  Daniel  there  is  no  room  for  such 
compromises.  There  is  here  no  choice  be- 
tween faith  and  unbelief:  take  all  or  reject 
all ;  and  rejecting  all,  reflect  that  you 
reject  Christ  Himself.  So,  while  Pusey  is 
able  to  say,  "  I  have  conscientiously  read 
everything  which  has  been  written  against 
the  Book  of  Daniel,"  he  goes  into  its  de- 
fence with  the  alacrity  of  the  strong  man 
to  run  a  race.  '*  This  Book,"  he  says,  "  is 
especially  fitted  to  be  the  battle-field  be- 
tween faith  and  unbeHef.  It  admits  of  no 
half-measures.  It  is  either  divine  or — an 
imposture  ...  in  a  word,  one  lie  in  the 
Name  of  God."  Hitzig  coolly  accuses  the 
book  as  a  forgery  and  an  intentional  decep- 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  109 

tion,  and  Rosenmiiller  imputes  to  its  author 
deliberate  and  elaborate  fraud.  With  all 
such  unbelievers  Pusey  joins  issue.  "  Their 
major  premiss  is:  (i)  Since  there  cannot 
be  either  prophecy  or  miracle,  a  book 
claiming  to  contain  definite  prophecies  or 
a  contemporary  account  of  unmistakable 
miracles  cannot  belong  to  the  period  to 
which  it  is  ascribed.  Their  minor  prem- 
iss is :  (2)  The  Book  of  Daniel  does 
make  such  claims."  £r^o,  etc.  Over 
against  all  this  Pusey  sets  his  major  and 
minor,  as  follows:  ''(i)  Whatever  Jesus 
.says  is  true.  (2)  He  has  said  that 
Daniel  is  a  prophet."  Br^o,  etc.  Accept 
this  conclusion,  or  cease  to  call  yourself 
a  Christian. 

There  it  stands.  No  compromise  here. 
You  must  accept  Daniel,  or  renounce 
Christ.  And  never  was  a  Waterloo  defeat 
more  decisive  than  the  fight  which  our  au- 
thor makes  on  this  field.  It  completely  re- 
verses and   overthrows  what   Bunsen  had 


no  HOLY    WRIT 

styled  "  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of 
modern  criticism."  But  Bunsen,  less  ex- 
travagantly indeed,  shouted  victory  for  his 
friend  Niebuhr  in  like  manner,  and  lived  to 
see  that  Niebuhr  was  mistaken.  I  point  to 
this  wt)rk,  therefore,  as  an  example  of  the 
highest  criticism,  and  as  utterly  demolish- 
ing the  whole  system  so  much  cried  up  in 
our  day  and  which  overthrows  the  faith  of 
so  many.  It  is  a  specimen  of  that  expert 
and  specialist  learning  which  I  have  spoken 
of  as  requisite  to  the  crisis ;  and  while  I 
profess  no  such  learning  myself,  I  do  pro- 
fess ability  to  appreciate  the  accumulated 
stores  of  knowledge,  massive  and  minute, 
which  are  here  brought  into  operation 
against  innumerable  devices  of  the  enemy. 
''  Let  God  be  true  and  every  man  a  liar" 
who  presumes  to  contradict  Him.  So  says 
the  Apostle,  and  this  erudite  priest  and 
doctor  proves  that  such  men  are  liars — 
nothing  less — arrogant  and  ignorant,  too, 
though    he  charitably  suggests  that   they 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  I  1 1 

are  blind  while  they  say,  *'We  see." 
Daniel,  their  chosen  field,  is  lost  for  them, 
and  no  devout  student  of  this  great  argu- 
ment can  fail  to  see,  by  its  aid,  that  the 
Book  of  Daniel  the  prophet  is  part  of  that 
Word— of  which  the  Incarnate  Wotd  has 
said,  "Thy  Word  is  truth."  Pusey's  calm 
conclusion  sounds  like  the  language  of  an 
old  prophet  risen  again :  ''  You  must  make 
your  choice  ;  let  it  be  a  real  one.  But  be- 
fore you  choose,  set  before  you  that  day  in 
which  you  shall  see  unveiled  all  that  you 
now  see  in  part.  .  .  .  God  did  not  reveal 
Himself  that  we  should  Hve  in  a  twilight, 
seeing  nothing  of  His  Truth  distinctly,  but 
only  men  as  trees  walking.  Twilight  must 
brighten  into  full  day,  or  darken  into  the 
heaviness  of  night." 

As  I  read  this  I  recall  the  impression 
made  upon  my  boyish  heart  by  those  strik- 
ing lines  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,^  which  even 

1  "The  Monastery,"  vol.  i.,  p.  158.  Ed.  Boston, 
1855. 


112  HOLY    WRIT 

poor  Byron  must  have  felt  profoundly  when 
he  copied  them  into  his  Bible : 

"  Within  this  awful  volume  lies 
The  mystery  of  mysteries. 
Happiest  they  of  human  race 
To  whom  the  Lord  has  granted  grace 
To  read,  to  fear,  to  hope,  to  pray, 
To  lift  the  latch  and  force  the  way ; 
And  better  had  they  ne'er  been  born 
Who  read  to  doubt,  or  read  to  scorn." 

But  while  I  hold  that  a  conscientious 
study  of  Pusey's  "  Daniel  "  is  of  itself  suffi- 
cient to  dissipate  all  the  prestiges  of  this 
pretended  *' progress"  in  Biblical  criticism, 
I  owe  it  to  the  memory  of  my  illustrious 
friend,  Bishop  Lightfoot,  to  direct  renewed 
attention  to  his  equally  meritorious  work 
on  *'  Supernatural  Religion."  And  this  for 
another  reason ;  because  it  was  called  forth 
from  his  unwearied  brain  and  accumulated 
wealth  of  learning  alike  by  the  vociferous 
praises  bestowed  on  an  anonymous  work, 
and  by  the  unprincipled  tricks  which 
brought  it  into  notoriety.    A  glance  at  the 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  II3 

Story  of  this  publication  ^  will  supply  a 
needed  comment  upon  the  artificial  nature 
of  the  credit  which  such  characters  as  its 
author  are  able  to  secure  from  the  huzzas 
of  the  crowd,  and  from  the  patronage  of 
unbelief  in  the  masquerade  of  science.  In 
contrast,  a  few  citations  from  the  pages  in 
which  Lightfoot  has  examined  the  sophist- 
ries of  its  author  will  prove  the  superiority 
of  truly  scientific  learning,  and  suggest  the 
processes  by  which  pretenders  are  sure  to 
be  found  wanting,  if  tried  in  the  balances 
of  accurate  investigation. 

The  late  Dr.  Thirlwall,  Bishop  of  St. 
David's,  was  a  literary  prelate  of  eminent 
abilities  and  splendid  attainments.  After  a 
brilliant  career  at  Cambridge,  and  due 
preparation  in  jurisprudence,  he  was  called 
to  the  bar  in  1825,  at  Lincoln's  Inn,  with 
every  prospect  before  him  of  the  highest 
advancement  in  his  profession.      He  might 

1  "Supernatural  Religion:  An  Inquiry  into  the 
Reality  of  Divine  Revelation."      In  two  vols.,  1874. 


114  HOLY    WRIT 

have  aspired  to  the  woolsack  without  im- 
modesty, and  would  probably  have  been 
made  Lord  Chancellor  at  no  distant  day ; 
but  in  1828  he  took  holy  orders,  and  during 
a  long  life  he  distinguished  himself  in  every 
effort  of  his  pen,  and  by  the  mild  dignity 
of  his  intercourse  with  learned  men,  among 
whom  he  seemed  in  some  degree  to  reign 
as  facile  princeps.  Near  the  close  of  his 
life  all  England  was  astonished  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  anonymous  work  ascribed 
to  him  by  general  consent  of  the  press,  and 
pronounced,  with  extravagant  eulogies,  not 
only  worthy  of  his  erudition,  but  the  con- 
summate flower  of  his  genius,  and  an  un- 
answerable argument  against  the  credit  of 
Holy  Writ,  or,  in  short,  of  revealed  relig- 
ion. There  was  just  enough  in  the  hterary 
tastes  of  Thirlwall  and  his  known  opinions 
on  certain  subjects  to  give  colour  to  such 
an  announcement.  His  early  studies  had 
inclined  him  to  the  classical  scepticism  of 
Niebuhr,  then  predominating,  and  he  was 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  II5 

supposed  to  share  in  some  of  the  theolog- 
ical vagaries  of  Bunsen.  The  appearance 
of  a  work  apparently  marked  by  research 
and  real  erudition,  and  generally  attributed 
to  so  eminent  a  bishop,  while  it  aimed  a 
death-blow  at  the  religion  he  had  professed 
through  his  whole  life,  could  not  fail  to 
command  a  sensational  popularity.  1  Re- 
viewers pronounced  it,  of  course,  a  speci- 
men of  scholarship  and  critical  acumen  of 
the  highest  merit.  It  is  worth  while  to 
observe  how  easily  this  reputation  can  be 
gained  for  such  a  book ;  how  readily,  on  a 
credit  so  fictitious,  thousands  will  celebrate 
the  triumph  of  modern  inquiry  as  complete 
over  truths  which  have  been  tried  in  the 
fire  for  successive  ages  and  have  come  forth 
from  every  furnace  unscathed.  "  The  au- 
thor," writes  one,  '*  is  a  scientifically  trained 
critic  :  he  has  learned  to  argue  and  to  weigh 

1  The  rumour  was  promptly  denied,  but  the  success 
of  the  publication  was  secured  by  what — one  trusts  with 
Lightfoot — was  not  a  premeditated  fraud. 


Il6  HOLY    WRIT 

evidence."  **  The  book,"  adds  another, 
"  proceeds  from  a  man  of  ability,  a  scholar, 
and  a  reasoner ;  i  ...  his  scholarship  is 
apparent  throughout."  ''Along  with  a 
wide  and  minute  scholarship,"  says  the 
same  reviewer,  "  the  unknown  writer  shows 
great  acuteness."  Again  a  third  reviewer, 
and  one  entitled  to  respect,  praises  "  the 
searching  and  scholarly  criticism  "  of  the 
book.  Still  another  sounds  the  same  note 
of  admiration  for  the  unknown  author's 
"  careful  and  acute  scholarship."  These 
eminent  reviewers  evidently  supposed  it 
the  work  of  the  scholar  to  whom  rumour 
assigned  it,  and  wholly  worthy  of  a  bishop 
**  who  had  few  rivals  among  his  contem- 
poraries as  a  scholar  and  a  critic."  One 
wonders  how  even  the  masterly  mind  of 
Bishop  Lightfoot  could  take  up  a  work  of 
such  incomparable  merit  without  fear  and 
trembling.  His  first  inspection,  however, 
led  him  to  the  judgment  that  ''  its  criticisms 

1  I  condense  from  Bishop  Lightfoot,  p.  3.    Ed.  1889. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  II7 

were  too  loose  and  pretentious  and  too 
full  of  errors  to  produce  any  permanent 
effect."  He  adds:  ''For  the  most  part, 
attacks  of  this  kind  on  the  records  of  the 
Divine  Life  are  best  left  alone."  Even  so, 
for  they  soon  expire  in  their  own  mephitic 
savour,  and,  as  with  Bahrdt  and  Nicolai, 
their  memorial  perishes  with  them.  But 
the  book  was  obtaining  notoriety  from  the 
popular  acceptance  of  its  imputed  author- 
ship, and  Lightfoot  could  no  longer  forbear. 
He  says :  ''  I  was  forced  to  break  silence 
when  I  found  that  a  cruel  and  unjustifiable 
assault  was  made  on  a  very  dear  friend,  to 
whom  I  was  attached  by  the  most  sacred 
personal  and  theological  ties;  and  as  I 
advanced  with  my  work,  I  seemed  to 
see  that,  though  undertaken  to  redress  a 
personal  injustice,  it  might  be  made  sub- 
servient to  the  wider  interests  of  the 
truth." 

The  discussion  which  ensued  is  all-suffi- 
cient to  settle  the  questions  I  am  now  sur- 


Il8  HOLY   WRIT 

veying,  historically.  Nothing  that  has  ap- 
peared, anywhere,  against  the  supernatural 
element  in  Christianity  has  been  more 
loudly  praised  as  a  scientific  and  conclu- 
sive argument  against  Divine  Revelation. 
Whoever  wrote  it,  it  was  just  what  the 
''higher  criticism"  knew  before,  and  had 
settled  by  other  processes.  This  was  a 
new  sun  risen  upon  the  midday  of  Illumi- 
nation.^ If  this  is  not  decisive,  there  is 
nothing  further  to  be  said. 

Be  it  so.  And  let  it  be  compared  with 
the  calm  examination  and  refutation  of 
Joseph  Lightfoot,  that  worthy  successor  of 
Joseph  Butler  in  the  See  of  Durham.  He 
adds  little  in  the  way  of  comment,  but  that 
little  is  terribly  significant  of  the  position 
of  the  anonymous  one  who  could  trade 
successfully  on  the  injury  which  attributed 
an    assault    on    Christianity   to    the    great 

1  A  second,  third,  and  fourth  edition  appeared  in  two 
volumes,  1874;  fifth  and  sixth  editions  followed  in  1875  ; 
a  third  volume  in  1877;  a  complete  edition,  three  vols., 
in  1879, 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  II9 

name  of  a  Christian  bishop.  Considering 
that  the  anonymous  writer  boasts  of  the 
long  years  during  which  his  work  had 
been  maturing,  what  an  indictment  against 
Thirl  wall  was  made  by  ascribing  it  to 
him!  *' No  words,"  says  Lightfoot,  *' can 
be  too  strong  to  condemn  the  heartless 
cruelty  of  this  imputation.  .  .  .  The  bishop 
had  Hved  in  the  full  blaze  of  publicity  ;  and 
on  his  fearless  integrity  no  breath  of  sus- 
picion had  ever  rested :  yet,  when  increas- 
ing infirmities  obliged  him  to  lay  down  his 
office,  he  was  told  that  his  Hfe  for  years 
past  had  been  one  gigantic  lie,  .  .  .  had 
for  years  past  been  guilty  of  the  basest 
fraud  of  which  a  man  is  capable." 

Lightfoot  turns  to  a  critical  examina- 
tion of  the  work  on  ''  Supernatural  Relig- 
ion," with  the  reflection  that  it  "  presents 
a  trenchant  contrast  to  the  refined  schol- 
arship and  cautious  logic"  of  Thirl  wall ; 
and  his  first  step  brings  Out  evidence  that 
a  schoolboy  might  convict  the   author  of 


I20  HOLY    WRIT 

the  grossest  ignorance  of  the  Greek  gram- 
mar, and  of  the  most  unconscious  parade 
of  the  same,  when  he  tries  to  correct  an 
accurate  rendering  of  Dr.  Westcott's,  and 
another  of  Tischendorf's,  both  of  whom 
he  accuses  of  falsifying  what  they  present 
as  a  translation.  Next,  the  bishop  deals  in 
a  similar  manner  with  another  example,  as 
negligent  of  tenses  as  the  other  was  of 
moods:  adding  that  these  two  specimens 
have  been  selected  not  as  by  any  means 
the  worst  examples  of  his  Greek,  but  be- 
cause an  elaborate  argument  is  thus 
wrecked  on  the  rock  of  syntax.  The  Latin 
of  our  Priscian  is  next  tried,  after  other 
blunders  in  his  Greek  have  been  pointed 
out,  and  lo!  an  imperfect  subjunctive  is 
treated  as  a  present  indicative,  in  sublime 
neglect  of  rules  which  boys  who  have  been 
drilled  in  Caesar  are  expected  scrupulously 
to  observe.  His  German — yes,  even  that 
— fares  no  better  than  his  treatment  of  the 
dead  languages,  in  the  crucible  of  Light- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  12  1 

foot's  criticism.  It  is  to  be  noted  that 
these  and  other  tokens  of  **  acute  scholar- 
ship "  are  corrected  in  subsequent  editions 
— but  only  tacitly;  that  is,  without  honour- 
able acknowledgment  of  the  source  of  the 
improvement.  Reflect  that  we  are  now 
considering  a  superlative  specimen  of  the 
"higher  criticism."  I  cannot  forbear, 
therefore,  to  quote  entire  the  following  deli- 
cately worded  expressions  of  the  true  critic. 
He  says :  "  Having  shown  that  the  author 
does  not  possess  the  elementary  knowledge 
which  is  indispensable,  ...  I  shall  not 
stop  to  inquire  how  far  he  exhibits  those 
higher  qualifications  which  are  far  more 
rare:  whether,  for  instance,  he  has  the 
discriminating  tact  and  nice  balance  of 
judgment  necessary  for  such  a  work;  or 
whether,  again,  he  reahzes  how  men  in 
actual  life  do  speak  and  write  now,  and 
might  be  expected  to  speak  and  write  six- 
teen or  seventeen  centuries  ago;  without 
which  qualifications  the  most  painful  study 


122  HOLY   WRIT 

and  reproduction  of  German   and   Dutch 
criticism  is  valueless." 

When  we  reflect  that  the  three  ponder- 
ous volumes  of  this  ''Great  Unknown" 
have  the  one  merit  of  presenting  the  whole 
case  against  Revelation  as  put  forth  by 
"higher  criticism,"  we  see  the  real  service 
the  "  Unknown  "  has  really  effected  for  the 
cause  of  truth.  Here  is  all  that  can  be 
said  by  High  Dutch  and  Low  Dutch ;  here 
is  the  concentrated  result  of  all  their  think- 
ing, scratching,  erasing,  and  digging  and 
delving,  from  the  epoch  of  Spinoza  to  this 
of  Schopenhauer  and  his  caput -mortmtm^ 
Pessimism.  And  upon  all  this  sits  Light- 
foot  in  his  supremacy  of  intellectual,  power 
and  knowledge  and  understanding  and  wis- 
dom, like  a  Daniel  come  to  judgment.  Out 
of  his  court  emerges  the  Fourth  Gospel  in- 
tact and  unscathed ;  the  Synoptists  come 
forth  sustained  and  vindicated ;  the  Apoc- 
alypse, and,  in  short,  the  Canon  of  Script- 
ure, as  witnessed  by  the  Fathers,  are  es- 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 23 

tablished  and  confirmed.  We  have  heard 
of  those  chambers  of  compression  that 
closed  upon  the  victims  of  the  Vehmgericht. 
Without  cruelty,  but  with  unsullied  justice, 
this  convict  is  subjected  to  Hke  punishment 
by  the  righteous  tribunal  of  Lightfoot.  The 
walls  close  in  upon  him  slowly  and  surely, 
and  he  becomes  straitened  on  every  side, 
till  with  terrible  retribution  he  is  reduced 
to  nothingness  and  perishes  in  flagrant  de- 
lict. Yes,  flagrant  is  the  word  for  the 
crime;  for  meanness  and  subterfuge  are 
here  laid  open  with  judicial  calmness  and 
just  exposure,  in  all  the  colourless  severity 
of  demonstration  that  speaks  for  itself  and 
crushes  without  comment.  Ushered  into 
notoriety  and  into  trade  by  a  fraud  of  un- 
speakable wickedness,  and  passed  through 
edition  after  edition,  in  which  tacit  correc- 
tions and  sneaking  evasions  are  a  cognovit 
of  blunders  innumerable — stat  nominis  um- 
bra. A  very  thin  ghost  is  all  that  is  left  of 
this  gigantic  Anonymous.      Like  one  of  the 


124  HOLY    WRIT 

Nephilim,  like  the  prodigy  that  emerged 
from  the  fisherman's  drag-net,  in  the  Ara- 
bian fable,  so  came  this  trumpeted  giant 
before  the  world,  a  portent  and  a  menace, 
a  threat  of  extinction  to  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.  Not  by  stratagem,  but  by  main 
strength,  Lightfoot  has  forced  him  down 
again  into  his  box,  under  Solomon's  seal, 
and  with  the  derisive  scorn  of  scholarship 
and  of  integrity  he  has  been  kicked  back 
into  the  Dead  Sea,  where  at  least  one  of 
his  ideas  will  be  gratified :  for  his  book,  we 
may  be  sure,  there  will  be  no  resurrection. 
There  are  times  when  long-suffering  faith 
and  fidelity  to  God  have  a  right  to  answer 
fools  according  to  their  folly.  "  It  came 
to  pass  that  Elijah  mocked  them."  For  a 
moment  I  have  given  vent  to  the  thoughts 
which  came  to  my  mind  as  I  closed  this 
completed  work  of  that  "king  of  men" — 
in  a  nobler  sense  another  "  prince-bishop  " 
of  Durham.  It  was  just  before  he  died, 
and  his  book  was  the  last  gift  of  one  whose 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  12$ 

friendship  was  to  me  most  dear.  How  pro- 
foundly I  have  felt  the  grandeur  of  his  char- 
acter, the  sweetness  of  his  humility  and 
charity,  the  beauty  and  perfection  of  his 
scholarship !  Since  the  days  of  Bede,  who 
sleeps  the  sleep  of  peace  in  Lightfoot's  own 
cathedral,  the  Church  of  England  has  never 
ceased  to  breed  such  men.  Think  of  her 
immortal  Alcuin;^  think  of  her  schoolmen, 
the  greatest  and  best  of  their  kind ;  think 
of  Wiclif,  the  restorer  of  Holy  Scripture ; 
think  of  Ridley  for  doctrine  and  Cranmer 
for  liturgies.  I  should  blush  for  myself 
were  I  ashamed  to  add,  think  of  Tindal  and 
Coverdale  and  Jewel,  in  evil  days  so  much 
better  and  wiser  than  their  times ;  and  re- 
member Hooker,  whose  sober  judgment 
and  vast  erudition,  said  a  pope,  *'  shall  en- 
dure till  the  conflagration  that  must  con- 
sume all  things."  And  since  those  fiery 
days  from  which  she  came  forth  "  a  vessel 
of  honour  fit  for  the  Master's  use,"  what 

»  Note  XX. 


126  HOLY    WRIT 

treasures  of  sanctified  learning  have  been 
amassed  for  Christendom  by  her  sons,  lay- 
men as  well  as  divines.  Oh,  how  humbled 
I  feel,  as  I  converse,  in  their  massive  works, 
with  Taylor  and  Bull  and  Butler  and  the 
noble  army  of  confessors  and  doctors  who 
have  continued  their  bright  succession  to 
our  own  times.  Shall  we  ever  have  schools 
of  consecrated  learning  in  America,  clus- 
tered about  motherly  cathedrals,  where  stu- 
dious men  may  daily  *'  devour  the  adver- 
sary," or  furnish  armour  and  artillery  for 
their  brethren  in  the  field,  condemned,  like 
me,  to  practical  work,  and  to  bear  "  the 
burden  and  heat  of  the  day  "  ?  In  view  of 
wants  like  these  in  our  own  dear  Church, 
and  in  view  of  the  degenerate  school  in 
England  which  has  made  common  cause 
with  the  ignoble  and  covert  assailant  of 
Divine  Revelation,  forgive  me  for  closing 
with  a  song,  which  is  yet  a  sermon  and  a 
prayer.  I  quote  an  English  layman ;  verse 
from  the  chaste  and  lofty  genius  of  Words- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 2/ 

worth ;  not  least,  and,  thank  God,  not  last, 
among  those  who  have  glorified  the  family 
name. 

"  For,  as  on  earth  it  is  the  doom  of  Truth 
To  be  perpetually  attacked  by  foes, 
Open  or  covert,  be  the  Priesthood  still, 
For  Truth's  defense,  replenished  with  a  band 
Of  strenuous  champions  in  scholastic  arts 
Thoroughly  disciplined.     Nor — if  in  course 
Of  the  revolving  world's  disturbances 
Cause  should  recur  (which  righteous  Heaven  avert!) 
To  meet  such  trial— /rc-w  their  spiritual  sires 
Degenerate ;  who,  constrained  to  wield  the  sword 
Of  disputation,  shrunk  not,  tho'  assailed 
With  hostile  din,  and  combating  in  sight 
Of  angry  umpires,  partial  and  unjust: 
And  did,  thereafter,  bathe  their  hands  in  fire, 
But  blessing  God  and  praising  Him,  bequeathed 
With  their  last  breath,  from  out  the  smouldering  flame, 
The  Faith,  which  they  by  diligence  had  earned, 
Or  by  illuminating  grace  received. 
For  their  dear  countrymen  and  all  mankind."  1 

1  "  The  Excursion,"  Book  VI.,  p.  446.     Am.  ed., 
1837. 


128  HOLY    WRIT 


LECTURE    III. 

THE     HIGHEST     CRITICISM. 

That  glorious  name  of  the  faithful 
which  was  awarded  them  at  Antioch  is 
still  claimed  as  honourable  by  many  who 
depart  from  the  faith  and  assail  it  with  the 
mahgnity  of  the  Sadducees.  But  he  only 
is  a  Christian  who  "  believes  in  his  heart 
and  confesses  with  his  mouth  "  that  Jesus 
Christ,  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate,  was 
proved  ''  the  Son  of  God,  with  power,  by 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead."^  He  only 
is  a  Christian  who  makes  this  profession  in 
the  words  of  the  great  Catholic  symbol — 
**  He  rose  again  according  to  the  Script- 
ures; "  that  is  to  say,  in  the  words  of  the 
same  symbol,  the  Scriptures  of  the  Holy 

1  Rom.  i.  4;  X.  9. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 29 

Ghost,  "  who  spake  by  the  prophets." 
And  if  the  Holy  Ghost  spake  by  a  succes- 
sion of  prophets,  "  which  have  been  since 
the  world  began,"  much  more  hath  He 
spoken  by  apostles  and  evangelists,  since 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  sent  to  fill  the  whole 
Church,  and  to  lead  it  into  all  truth — the 
Gospel  of  the  New  Testament.  This  is 
Holy  Writ,  in  the  contemplation  of  which 
we  invoke  the  Highest  Criticism,  and  pass 
from  the  gainsay ings  of  Core  and  his  imi- 
tators to  the  consideration  of  apostolic  tes- 
timony :  for  not  upon  human  theory,  but 
from  "  the  witness  and  keeper "  of  Holy 
Writ,  we  accept  what  we  believe  concern- 
ing the  ''oracles  of  God." 

Of  the  difficulties  suggested  by  Holy 
Writ,  and  which  have  proved  fatal  lo  his 
countrymen  for  successive  generations,  be- 
cause Luther  made  every  man  his  own 
pope.  Dr.  Kahnis  well  remarks :  *'  That 
which  every  human  science  allows  to  itself 
without  losing  confidence  in  itself  should 


I30  HOLY    WRIT 

surely  be  permitted  to  a  science  which  has 
to  deal  with  divine  mysteries,"  The  book 
of  Nature  presents  mysteries  quite  as  im- 
penetrable as  those  of  Revelation.  The 
finite,  in  both  alike,  is  unable  to  compre- 
hend the  infinite  :  for  God's  thoughts  *'  are 
not  our  thoughts,  nor  His  ways  our  ways." 
Hence,  in  an  admirable  temper,  he  pro- 
ceeds :  "  It  is  no  disgrace  to  say,  here  is 
a  difficulty  which  I  cannot  remove,  an  ob- 
jection which  I  cannot  refute,  a  contradic- 
tion which  I  cannot  reconcile."  Science  is 
forced  to  do  this  incessantly.  Copernicus 
admitted  the  difficulties  of  his  own  system, 
but  adhered  to  it,  because  in  rejecting  it  he 
encountered  difficulties  vastly  more  numer- 
ous  and   more    formidable.     What   then? 

li- 
st. Peter  recognized  all  this,  and  provides 

the  remedy  in  his  comments  upon  St.  Paul's 
Epistles :  ''  In  which  are  some  things  hard 
to  be  understood,  which  they  that  are  un- 
learned and  unstable  wrest,  as  they  do, 
also,  the  other  Scriptures,  to  their  own  de- 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  131 

struction."  We  must  be  patient,  and  ad- 
here to  known  Truth. 

It  has  not  been  sufficiently  perceived 
that  we  owe  all  this  commotion  about 
*'  treating  the  Bible  like  any  other  book  " 
to  the  fact  that  the  German  reformers  (so 
called),  in  breaking  away  from  Rome,  failed 
to  re-occupy  the  rocky  fastnesses  of  primi- 
tive Catholicity.  Hence  the  Holy  Script- 
ures became  to  their  schools  so  many 
sibylline  leaves  which  every  man  must  re- 
construct according  to  his  own  conscious- 
ness. Luther  himself  rejected  the  Epistle 
of  St.  James,^  and  with  it  the  Catholic  doc- 
trine of  justification  by  faith — which  insists 
that  works  are  the  essential  element  of  the 
faith  which  justifies.  So  early  in  his  effort 
to  construct  what  he  considered  the  crite- 
rion of  a  "  standing  or  falling  Church,"  did 
he  create  the  fact  of  a  fallen  CJmrcJi. 

That  all  clear  ideas  of  testimony  and  of 
the  Church  CathoHc  perished  in  his  experi- 

1  Note  XXI. 


132  HOLY    WRIT 

ment  may  be  clearly  discovered  in  the  work 
and  the  personal  despair  and  misconcep- 
tions of  the  eminent  Lutheran  whom  I 
have  so  often  cited  in  these  lectures.^  In 
his  suspiria  de  profitndis  he  invokes  a  bet- 
ter spirit,  and  reflects  in  the  anguish  of 
his  own  heart  upon  the  emptiness  of  the 
"  union  "  effected  between  the  Lutherans 
and  the  Calvinists  in  1817,  under  the  pious 
Caesarism  of  Frederick  III.  Listen  to  this : 
"  The  iLiiited  clergy  promised  to  teach  the 
Christian  doctrine  in  such  a  manner  as  each 
for  himself ,  after  honest  inquiry  and  accord- 
ing to  the  best  of  his  convictions,  draws  it 
from  Scripture."  Here  was  the  creation  of  a 
papacy  in  every  individual ;  the  pope,  which 
Luther  said,  in  his  coarse  way,  "  every  man 
carries  in  his  own  belly."  And  Kahnis  re- 
bukes its  impotency  in  the  simpHcity  of  his 
heart,  and  as  if  it  were  a  discovery  of  his 
own,  in  these  words  :  '*  If  every  Protestant 
divine  is  to  expound  Scripture  in  his  own 

1  Kahnis,  pp.  262,  308,  328. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 33 

way,  to  form  the  doctrines  and  shape  their 
structure  each  one  after  his  own  method, 
what  must  be  the  result?  "  He  gives  the 
answer  of  common  sense  to  his  own  ques- 
tion :  **  The  result  must  be  a  chaos  of 
standpoints,  like  atoms  crossing  one  an- 
other, with  which  no  church,  no  sound  sci- 
ence could  be  possible." 

Precisely  so.  And  such  is  the  chaos  I 
have  been  surveying,  and  out  of  which  the 
best  minds  of  Germany  are  struggling  to 
free  themselves ;  while,  to  the  surprise  of 
mankind  and  the  scandal  of  English  com- 
mon sense,  there  are  some  among  us  who, 
instead  of  stretching  forth  the  helping  hand 
of  our  Catholicity  to  bewildered  spirits,  are 
endeavouring  to  import  among  us  a  similar 
Protestantism.  In  language  which  Kahnis 
seems  to  adopt ^ — concerning  "the  miser- 
able condition  of  Protestantism  " — he  tells 
us  that  one  of  the  ablest  of  his  brethren 
was  forced   to  exclaim :   "  I  confess   can- 

'    Ut  supra,  p.  308. 


134  HOLY   WRIT 

didly,  I  am  sometimes  ashamed  of  being 
obliged  to  call  myself  a  Protestant."  If  any 
one  wishes  to  prove  that  Germany  needs 
to  learn  a  practical  way  out  of  chaos,  by 
restoring  Catholic  law,  as  the  Anglicans  did 
three  centuries  ago,  let  me  further  elicit 
such  evidence  from  the  learned  Lutheran 
aforesaid.  He  calls  for  ''  a  subjective  Chris- 
tian spirit,"  by  which  Germans  often  mean 
what  we  call  an  objective  one :  "  a  spirit 
which  with  cordial  sympathy  enters  into 
the  phenomena  of  the  past  life  of  the 
Church''  He  deplores  "  the  mistakes  and 
aberrations  of  a  mode  of  exposition  coinci- 
dent with  the  theology  of  mere  feeling,  a 
formless  individualized  Christianity."  He 
adds :  '*  The  spirit  of  historic  representa- 
tion, which  alone  corresponds  to  the  history 
of  the  Church,  is  to  feel  as  a  Chnrchmany 
What  an  unconscious  tribute  to  the  Angli- 
can Prayer-book,  to  the  Ordinal  and  the 
Liturgy!  What  an  impeachment  of  the 
whole  "  reformation  "  attempted  by  Luther 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 35 

and  Calvin  in  his  further  complaint  that 
the  use  they  made  of  Scripture  "  prevented 
them  from  giving  its  due  place  to  the  his- 
torical view."  One  would  think  he  was 
quoting  our  own  standard  divines  when  he 
speaks  of  the  conviction  of  the  whole 
Church  that  "  the  same  Spirit  who  has  re- 
vealed Himself  in  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment prevails  hi  her.''  And  this  convic- 
tion he  actually  substitutes  for  Luther's 
maxim,  as  the  test  *'  of  a  standing  or  falling 
Church."  "  It  is  not  the  consciousness  of 
this  or  that  individual,  but  the  consciousness 
of  the  Church,  which  must  interpret  Script- 
ure." And  again,  "  It  is  therefore  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Chnrch  that  the  Scriptures 
must  be  interpreted."  And  yet  again, 
speaking  of  those  who  laboured  to  depose 
the  Rationalists  :  ''  It  was  hence  a  necessary 
progress  of  exegesis  to  reduce  the  word  of 
Scripture  to  the  Christian  consciousness, 
...  to  reproduce  out  of  the  Word  the 
Spirit  who  has  produced  the  Word."     And 


136  HOLY    WRIT 

once  more :  '*  This  consciousness  has  not 
been  left  without  witnesses  :  the  interpreter 
must  go  to  the  work  in  relation  zvith  tJie 
voices  of  all  centuries.'"  Hear  it,  ye  Chris- 
tians of  America,  to  whom  we  have  com- 
mended the  **  Historic  Episcopate,"  for 
I  add  what  follows  this  lofty  appeal  to 
Catholic  Testimony,  exhibiting  the  utter 
despair  to  which  Kahnis  is  reduced  for 
the  want  of  it  in  Germany.  **  Feel  as  a 
Churchman,"  he  says — but  where  is  the 
Church  for  a  German  Protestant?  He 
gives  it  all  up  in  desperation,  with  these 
melancholy  words :  **  But  since  there  does 
not  exist  a  Catholic  Church,  but  only  par- 
ticular churches,"  a  man  with  the  right 
spirit  **  will  not  permit  himself  to  deny  the 
peculiarities  of  his  oivn  particular  church'' 
Thus  he  flounders  and  falls  back  into  the 
very  chaos  he  has  been  describing  and  be- 
wailing: "There  does  not  exist  a  Catho- 
lic Church."  Hear  it,  ye  heavens,  and 
give  ear,  O  Earth — the  Church  of  Christ 


AT\D    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 37 

has  failed!  The  Church  founded  on  the 
Rock  of  Golgotha  by  the  risen  Christ  has 
been  too  feeble  for  the  gates  of  hell.  What 
then  ?  His  advice  amounts  to  this :  Let 
the  poor  swimmer  in  this  deluge  of  unbe- 
lief cling  to  his  own  particular  fragment  of 
the  wreck,  drift  where  it  may.  Alas !  to 
borrow  his  own  eloquent  figure,  "  What  is 
the  use  of  setting  the  hands  of  one's  dial 
when  the  mainspring  is  broken!" 

Even  Ranke,  while  he  points  to  the 
causes  of  those  rapid  reconquests  of  the 
Jesuits  in  Germany  which  he  chronicles, 
feels  his  w^ay  toward  an  elucidation  when 
he  says:i  "This  effect  was  without  doubt 
produced  because  the  German  theologians 
had  never  arrived  at  any  clear  understand- 
ing among  tJieniselves''  He  should  have 
said,  **  Because  in  their  fury  as  reformers 
they  forgot  to  be  restorer's''  The  Angli- 
cans refused  to  follow  them,  and  made 
themselves  indeed  "  healers  of  the  breach 

1  Vol.  i.,  p.  418.     Bohn's  translation,  1858. 


138  HOLY    WRIT 

and  restorers  of  paths  to  dwell  in,"  by  a  re- 
turn to  the  Catholic  system  of  the  eldest 
antiquity. 

Theoretically,  the  pious  Auberlen,  while 
he  has  no  practical  principle  to  enforce  be- 
cause he  has  no  historic  Church  to  which 
he  can  turn  as  a  '*  witness  and  keeper  of 
Holy  Writ,"  reaches  a  Hke  conclusion  with 
Kahnis,  against  the  abuse  of  private  judg- 
ment. He  flies  from  the  burning  cities 
of  the  plain,  scorched  by  their  retribution 
and  not  untainted  by  their  contagion — seek- 
ing a  Zoar,  which,  like  Kahnis,  he  seeks  in 
vain.  For  him  also  there  is  no  church  of 
Testimony  and  of  Record  to  furnish  rest 
for  his  feet.  But  he  accepts  the  conclusion 
of  a  contemporary  author,  in  the  following 
words,!  which  might  have  been  written  by 
Bishop  Bull :  "  God  will  not  lead  and  in- 
struct men  by  the  Scriptures  alone ;  He 
employs  also  His  Spirit  and  the  Church  : 

1  "  Divine  Revelation,"  p.  247.  Edinburgh  trans- 
lation, 1867.     See  pp.  244-248,  345,  358. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 39 

therefore  He  has  given  His  word  in  a  form 
which  can  be  sufficient  to  lead  into  all  truth 
— only  in  connection  with  the  other  guides.'* 
To  the  same  purpose  Scripture  speaks  of 
itself :  "  No  prophecy  of  the  Scripture  is  of 
any  private  interpretation.  .  .  .  But  there 
shall  be  false  teachers  among  you."  What 
are  these  "  other  guides  "  of  which  Auber- 
len  feels  the  want,  which  only  can  refute  the 
false  teachers  ?  In  his  candid,  even  affec- 
tionate view  of  poor  Schleiermacher's  grop- 
ings  toward  the  hght,  Auberlen  proves, 
though  he  does  not  explicitly  adopt,  the 
great  value  of  the  Patristic  Testimony  ;  the 
famous  Canon  of  Vincent ;  the  rule  of  faith 
of  the  whole  Church  under  the  great  syn- 
ods, and  before  popes  were  heard  of,  save 
by  prophetic  vision,  as  among  the  *'  many 
Antichrists."  St.  Jude,  in  like  foresight, 
suppHes  in  essence  St.  Vincent's  rule,  as  St. 
Paul  and  St.  Peter  did  before  him.^     But 

1  II.  Thess.  ii.  13,  14;   II.  Tim.   i.  13;   II.  Peter  i. 
20 ;  ii.  passim;  St.  Jude,  especially  1 7  to  end. 


I40  HOLY    WRIT 

hear  the  sigh  of  Menken,  when,  in  1805,  he 
published  his  "Attempt  to  Provide  a  Guide 
to  Individual  Instruction  in  the  Truths  of 
Scripture."  In  the  Preface  he  says:  ''I 
would  gladly  speak  of  the  conformity  or 
non-conformity  of  my  work  to  the  stand- 
ard of  the  church,  if  there  were  a  church 
existing!  " 

Let  me  proceed  to  the  consideration  of 
the  principle  that  "  the  Bible  must  be 
treated  like  any  other  book,"  so  far  as  to 
show  (i)  in  what  sense  we  demand  that  it 
should  be  recognized  practically,  and  (2) 
how  it  must  be  guarded  by  logical  limita- 
tions. 

The  miracle  of  our  Lord's  resurrection, 
which  I  assume  to  be  accepted  by  all  who 
have  any  claim  to  be  called  Christians,  pre- 
cludes any  hesitation  with  regard  to  minor 
miracles  which  culminated  in  this.  This 
principle  takes  away  also  every  plea  against 
prophecy,  which  is  only  a  species  of  mira- 
cle, and  one  to  which  our  Lord's  resurrec- 


AND    iMODERN    THOUGHT.  I4I 

tion  has  set  the  sufficient  seal.  How  ab- 
surd to  talk  about  '*  the  fixt  laws  of  the 
universe,"  which  the  enemy  pronounces  to 
be  the  base  of  his  unbelief ;  as  if  their  very 
fixedness  were  not  the  necessary  base  of 
miracle  itself,  the  very  law  which  gives 
all  its  force  to  an  exception.  Clearly,  if  the 
fixt  laws  of  the  universe  were  not  laws^ 
but  merely  fluctuating  phenomena,  there 
could  be  no  miracle.  We  hold  to  these 
laws,  and  hence  when  there  arise  unques- 
tionable exceptions,  we  exclaim  :  "  Here  is 
the  finger  of  God."  The  Lawgiver  Him- 
self is  revealed :  ''  let  all  the  earth  keep 
silence  before  Him." 

Keeping  this  in  view,  the  Bible  may  be 
**  treated  like  any  other  book,"  and  we  de- 
mand that  it  should  be,  just  so  long  as  the 
canons  of  true  criticism  are  scrupulously 
regarded.  So  argues  our  Lightfoot :  ex- 
perto  crede  Roberto.  While  he  shrinks 
from  no  critical  examination  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, as  a  whole  or  in  detail,  such  as  any 


142  HOLY    WRIT 

competent  scholar  would  devote  to  a  book 
of  incomparable  dignity,  in  the  exercise  of 
judicial  conscientiousness  and  with  respect 
for  the  convictions  of  others,  he  cannot  con- 
sent to  the  proposals  of  every  bungler  and 
caviller  to  treat  the  Bible  as  such  charac- 
ters might  treat  any  book.  For  he  says 
of  the  essayist  already  mentioned :  "  When 
I  observed  that  the  author,  not  content 
with  ignoring  the  facts  and  reasonings, 
went  on  to  impugn  the  honesty  of  his  op- 
ponents; when  I  noticed  that,  again  and 
again,  the  arguments  on  one  side  of  the 
question  were  carefully  arrayed,  while  the 
arguments  on  the  other  side  were  alto- 
gether omitted ;  when  I  perceived  that  he 
denied  the  authenticity  of  every  work,  and 
questioned  the  applicability  of  every  ref- 
erence which  made  against  him ;  when,  in 
short,  I  saw,  that  however  sincere  the 
writer's  personal  convictions  might  be,  the 
critical  portion  of  the  work  was  stamped, 
throughout,  with  the  character  of  an  advo- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  I43 

cate's  ex-parte  statement,  I  felt  that  he 
had  forfeited  any  claim  to  special  forbear- 
ance." Now,  it  is  just  such  critics  as  this 
author,  who  in  the  estimate  of  review- 
ers had  carried  away  the  palm  from  all 
competitors  as  an  example  of  exhaustive 
scholarship,  and  of  a  successful  attack 
upon  Christianity — it  is  just  such  men  as 
he,  men  after  the, pattern  of  Nicolai  and 
Bahrdt,  that  bawl  most  loudly  for  the 
privilege  of  treating  the  Book  of  books 
**as  they  would  treat  any  other  book." 
By  which  they  mean,  as  even  they  would 
not  treat  any  other  book  in  the  world ;  for 
this  is  the  only  book  which  they  hate  with 
a  hatred  like  that  of  Julian  the  Apostate. 
Lightfoot  weighs  his  words,  when  he  pre- 
scribes widely  different  qualifications  as 
a  prerequisite  for  the  exercise  of  judicial 
faculties  by  any  one  who  would  judge 
righteously  of  the  Scripture  canon.  He 
adds  that,  with  such  a  course  of  prepara- 
tion as  he  indicates  for  reading   Irenaeus, 


144  HOLY    WRIT 

one  "  would  be  in  a  more  favourable 
position  for  judging  rightly  of  its  early- 
history  than  if  he  had  studied  all  the  mon- 
ograpJis  which  have  issued  from  the  Ger- 
man press  during  the  last  half  century'' 
And  Lightfoot's  judgment  in  this  matter 
is  supreme.  Ruling  out,  then,  all  such 
characters  as  the  author  of  the  **  Essay  on 
Supernatural  Religion,"  and  all  such  as 
would  treat  Isaiah  as  my  simulated  re- 
viewal  treats  Gray's  Ode,  we  do  not 
merely  allow — for  we  demandy  rather — (i) 
that  the  Bible  should  be  treated  like  any 
other  book  in  so  far  as  research  the  most 
exhaustive,  and  scrutiny  the  most  micro- 
scopic, can  be  brought  to  bear  on  it  by 
truth-seeking  and  truth-loving  men.  But 
(2)  we  demand  that  if  the  preliminary  ex- 
amination shall  prove  that  the  Bible  is 
wholly  unlike  any  other  book  in  its  two- 
fold history — in  the  history  of  its  origin 
and  preservation,  and  in  the  history  of  its 
influence  upon  humanity — then,  in  so  far, 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  I45 

its  treatment  should  be  commensurately 
unlike  the  treatment  of  other  books.  He 
who  should  dig  up  an  old  and  encrusted 
copper  vase,  for  example,  but  should  find 
reason,  in  the  suggestions  of  experts,  to 
examine  it  with  the  delicacy  due  to  a  work 
of  ancient  art,  would  undoubtedly  proceed 
to  investigate  it  with  a  proportionate  re- 
finement of  feeling.  If  on  further  exam- 
ination he  should  find  that  the  copper  was 
probably  silver,  in  the  estimate  of  compe- 
tent judges,  he  would  apply  his  chemical 
tests  yet  more  tenderly ;  and  should  these 
suggest  that,  after  all,  if  not  merely  parcel- 
gilt,  it  was  pure  gold,  then  it  is  quite  cer- 
tain he  could  not  pursue  his  work  except 
on  this  idea,  and  no  longer  as  a  problem, 
but  as  a  theorem.  Hopefully  and  in  love 
with  his  task,  he  would  exult  in  every 
token  that  his  theorem  was  capable  of 
demonstration.  Holy  Writ  should  be  dealt 
with  on  like  principles ;  for  it  comes  to  the 
critic's    hands    wholly     unlike    any   other 


146  HOLY    WRIT 

book,  and  hence  cannot  be  justly  treated 
otherwise  than  as  a  thing  of  superlative 
dignity.  Any  one  may  begin  with  it  prob- 
lematically, but  still  respectfully;  he  may 
be  scientifically  sceptical  at  the  outset,  and 
disposed  to  question  its  character,  and  in 
so  far  he  tnay  be  severe,  provided  he  will 
be  just.  But  when  he  cannot  deny  that 
the  believer  has  ground  for  his  theorem, 
that  it  will  be  found  pure  gold,  even 
though  tried  with  fire,  he  will  not  be  re- 
luctant to  submit  it  to  a  fiery  ordeal  in  the 
lofty  spirit  of  one  who  follows  up  experi- 
ment as  a  lover  of  truth,  and  with  good 
hope  that  he  can  reach  with  honest  satis- 
faction a  "  Q.  E.  D."  like  that  which  seals 
a  demonstration  of  EucHd.  It  is  thus  that 
the  erudite  Pusey  says  with  the  dignity 
of  a  scholar  and  of  a  judge :  "  I  have  con- 
scientiously 7'ead  everything  which  has 
been  written  against  the  Book  of  Daniel. 
But,  although  the  belief  as  to 
the  prophecies  of  Daniel  must  be  part  of 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  I47 

my  religious  being,  since  it  is  inseparable 
from  my  belief  that  Jesus  is  God — this  in 
no  way  interferes  with  the  examination  of 
these  prophecies  in  themselves.  I  cannot, 
indeed,  examine  them  as  one  who  doubts. 
Even  in  matters  of  certain  hu- 
man knowledge  men  do  not  ignore  their 
own  knowledge  in  order  to  impart  it  to 
others  or  to  remove  their  objections."  I 
suppose  such  is  the  great  principle  laid 
down  for  believers  in  St.  Paul's  canon — 
**  Prove  all  things."  He  subjects  the 
Scriptures  to  trial  with  a  theorem,  not  as  a 
problem.  He  demonstrates  his  theorem, 
however,  just  as  the  astronomer,  assuming 
the  truth  of  the  Copernican  system,  never- 
theless invites  the  closest  examination  of 
the  facts  and  processes  which  establish  it, 
though  in  flat  contradiction  to  our  senses 
and  to  all  the  convictions  of  scientists,  as 
they  were  propagated  and  plausibly  sus- 
tained for  thousands  of  years  after  the  true 
theory  had  been  stated. 


148  HOLY    WRIT 

Widely  different  are  the  processes  of 
Truth's  adversary,  though  he  also  has  his 
theorem.  He  assumes  that  all  is  false,  but 
**  his  wish  is  parent  to  his  thought,"  and 
he  sees  nothing,  grants  nothing,  weighs 
nothing,  that  conflicts  with  his  prejudice, 
his  malevolence,  his  hatred  of  Truth  and 
Light.  *'  Disbelief,"  says  Pusey,  **  has 
been  the  parent,  not  the  offspring,  of  their 
criticism — their  starting-point,  not  the  win- 
ning-post, of  their  course."  This  has  been 
made  evident  enough  in  the  unanswerable 
pages  of  Pusey  and  Lightfoot ;  and  of 
Guettee,  in  his  examination  of  the  brilliant 
Renan,  that  victim,  like  so  many  of  his 
countrymen,  of  scepticism  engendered  by 
Ultramontane  dogmas.  Such  the  fruits 
of  Jesuit  persistency  in  demanding  faith 
where  nothing  but  credulity  can  respond, 
since  what  they  require  of  the  human  in- 
tellect has  no  connection  with  evidence. 

By  contrast,  you  have  learned  the  mean- 
ing of  the  "  higher  criticism,"  and  of  what 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  I49 

I  call  the  ''highest  criticism."  In  these 
lectures  I  also  proceed  as  on  St.  Paul's 
canon,  and  state  the  case,  not  to  preclude 
your  own  examinations,  but  to  stimulate 
them.  I  invoke  the  most  searching,  investi- 
gation of  the  great  authors  who  have  satis- 
fied me,  and  of  those  whom  they  have  so 
ably  refuted  and  exposed  in  their  true 
character,  as  equally  incompetent  for  want 
of  sound  learning,  and  incapable  for  want 
of  candour. 

Weak  defenders  of  truth  are  they  who 
not  merely  forget  to  hold  the  old  fast- 
nesses of  Christendom,  but  those  who  fail 
to  seize  and  occupy  the  ground  which  has 
been  fairly  won. 

We  must  not  suffer  it  to  be  overlooked, 
after  two  centuries  of  warfare  such  as  I 
have  surveyed,  that  not  an  inch  of  foothold 
claimed  by  the  Catholic  Church  has  been 
surrendered.  But  more,  in  every  conflict 
we  have  gained  fresh  ground.  Out  of  the 
eater   has    come    forth  meat;   out   of   the 


I50  HOLY    WRIT 

Strong,  sweetness.  Renan  has  been  forced 
to  give  us  back  so  much  of  St.  Paul,  and 
of  ApostoHc  history,  as  enables  us  to  re- 
construct all  that  he  had  shattered  in  the 
imagination  of  some.  Daniel  is  not  only 
reconquered,  but  planted  more  firmly  in 
the  canon  than  ever  before.  Burgon  has 
reclaimed  the  concluding  verses  of  St. 
Mark  by  a  masterly  exercise  of  learning 
and  logic ;  and  the  canon  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament rises  like  the  Phoenix  out  of  the 
flames,  in  which  they  boasted  that  it  had 
perished.  Of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  take  the 
following  judgment  of  one  whose  right  to 
speak  will  not  be  questioned,  at  least  by 
the  enemy.  He  says :  **  Nearly  all  the 
savants  who  apply  the  rational  method  to 
the  history  of  theology  reject  the  Fourth 
Gospel  as  wholly  apocryphal.  I  have  re- 
flected largely  and  anew  upon  this  prob- 
lem, and  I  have  been  unable  to  modify, 
in  appreciable  degree,  my  previously  ex- 
pressed opinion.      Only,  as  I  disagree  on 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  151 

this  point  with  the  general  opinion,  I  have 
felt  it  my  duty  to  exhibit  in  detail  the 
grounds  of  my  persistency."  The  same 
writer  in  like  manner  states  his  confidence 
in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke  and  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  as  in  continuity  the  work  of 
the  same  author.  He  gathers  up  all  that 
has  been  said  by  the  rationaHsts,  and  adds : 
"  Shall  we,  then,  yield  to  these  objections? 
I  think  not,  and  I  persist  in  my  behef,  etc." 
So  speaks  the  redoubtable  Renan.i  It  is 
all-important,  also,  to  note  that,  after  all 
these  years  of  perpetual  theorizing,  de- 
molishing, disproving,  and  of  creating  new 
systems  out  of  mere  remnants  and  pre- 
sumed discoveries,  the  ultimaUtm,  if  not 
similar  to  this,  is  not  positive  but  absolutely 
negative.  After  it  has  been  a  hundred 
times  proclaimed,  "  Here  are  at  last  the 
facts;"  ''It  is  now  ascertained;"  in  short, 
**  We  now  know,  and  can  speak  positively," 

*  "  Les   Apotres,"   par   Ernest  Renan,  pp.    ix.-xv. 
Introduction.     *(Eleventh  edition.)     Paris,  1882. 


152  HOLY    WRIT 

— after  all  this,  it  has  come  down  to  "  We 
know  nothing."  The  actual  outcome  of 
"  higher  criticism  "  as  to  the  canon  of  Holy 
Writ  amounts  to  this  :  "  When,  by  whom, 
and  how  it  was  created  it  is  impossible  for 
us  to  determine."  ^  Yes,  and  if  we  ignore 
all  the  accumulations  of  evidence,  shut  our 
eyes  to  demonstrated  facts,  and  close  our 
ears  and  our  minds  alike  to  the  preponder- 
ance of  probabilities  and  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  experts,  how  easy  it  would 
be  to  treat  the  revelations  of  astronomy 
and  the  elemental  truths  of  geology  with 
a  similar  exclamation  of  contempt,  crying, 
*'  It  is  impossible  to  determine." 

But,  finally,  we  are  asked  to  give  a 
broad  margin  to  '*  the  human  element." 
Weak  defenders,  in  order  to  be  **  liberal," 
first  make  it  broader,  and  then  throw  it  as 
a  sop  to  the  insatiate  jaws  of  unbelief. 
Doubtless  there  is  a  human  element  where 
human  language  is  employed,  when  the 
1  Note  XXII. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 53 

Infinite  condescends  to  the  finite  mind  and 
talks  to  man  in  his  own  idioms,  limited  by 
the  immensity  of  our  ignorance.  In  mere 
versions  of  Scripture  this  element  becomes 
appreciable,  and  when  we  fall  back  on  the 
original  text,  there  is  yet  a  human  element 
to  be  allowed  for  in  questions  of  text  and 
of  guardianship;  while  there  remains  a 
very  important  inquiry,  and  one  that  re- 
quires to  be  more  fully  treated  by  devout 
believers  than  it  has  been,  respecting  those 
parts  of  Scripture  which  are  professedly 
compilations.  In  such  case,  possibly,  we 
may  not  claim  for  the  editor  exemption 
from  human  fallibility,  any  more  than  we 
do  for  the  devout  and  faithful  creators  of  a 
version  like  the  Peshito  or  the  Vulgate. 
A  striking  example  of  what  I  would  con- 
cede is  furnished  by  the  discourse  of  the 
friends  of  Job.  They  spake  *'  truths  that 
wake  to  perish  never";  but  they  appHed 
them  injudiciously  and  with  persistent  mis- 
take.    Hence    the    decisive   judgment   of 


154  HOLY    WRIT 

God  Himself,  who  moves  them  to  a  sac- 
rifice of  faith  and  repentance,  to  prayer, 
and  to  Job's  intercession,  with  the  words, 
*'  Lest  I  deal  with  you  after  yoiw  folly,  in 
that  ye  have  not  spoken  of  me  the  thing 
which  is  right,  like  my  servant  Job.'' 
Here,  then,  we  are  warned  to  read  those 
sublime  words  of  Eliphaz,  Elihu,  and  the 
others,  just  as  we  read  the  Apocrypha, 
according  to  St.  Jerome,^  "  for  the  edifica- 
tion of  the  people,  but  not  to  sustain  the 
authority  of  the  Church's  doctrines."  By 
this  rule  we  read  alike  the  Apocrypha 
and  the  words  of  Elihu,  but  cannot  cite 
them  as  unquestionable  truth,  save  only  as 
they  are  sustained  by  the  canonical  Scrip- 
tures. Happily,  the  Catholic  Church  has 
never  tied  her  children's  faith  to  any  theory 
about  inspiration  ;  but,  practically,  she  pre- 
sents us  with  her  canon — the  Old  Testa- 
ment stamped  by  Christ  Himself  with  His 

^  The  late  Bishop  of  Winchester  refers  to  the  Bene- 
dictine ed.     Tom.  i.,  p.  938. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  155 

seal,  as  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
the  New,  invested  with  like  character,  by 
Apostolic  testimony — the  whole  clothed 
with  that  majestic  summary  of  authentica- 
tion :  **  Every  Scripture  inspired  of  God  is 
also  profitable  for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction,  which  is  in  right- 
eousness." I  quote  the  Revised  Version, 
not  because  I  admire  its  clumsy  rhetoric, 
but  to  preclude  verbal  objections ;  and  be- 
cause it  allows  the  margin  of  Scripture  for 
which  I  have  argued.  The  words  of  Elihu, 
though  not  wholly  inspired,  are  included 
in  *'  Scripture,"  yet  we  have  shown  that 
they  are,  in  some  cases,  not  "  profitable." 
St.  Paul's  rule  claims  inerrancy  for  inspired 
Scripture  only ;  and  this  illustrates  other 
cases  where  there  is  a  human  element  to 
be  allowed  for,  if  we  can  prove  it  human. 
Yes,  and  there  is  the  crucial  point.  There 
was  a  human  element  in  the  personality  of 
the  Divine  Redeemer,  but  presumptuous 
indeed    is    he    who    would    undertake    to 


156  HOLY   WRIT 

separate  it  from  the  Person  of  the  One 
Christ.  The  very  hem  of  His  garment 
was  more  holy  than  that  Ark  of  the  Cove- 
nant which  Uzzah  profaned  by  his  touch, 
when  he  essayed  to  uphold  it,  because  it 
was  shaking.  And  just  so  the  Uzzahs  of 
our  day  have  presumed  to  deal  with  Him, 
in  whom  were  **  hid  all  the  treasures  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge  "  ;  in  whom  dwelt 
"all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily. "^ 
The  Dutch  critics  venture  to  define  the 
self-emptying  of  His  humility  as  implying 
the  contrary  of  all  this ;  He  became  less 
divine,  and  practically  human  only,  by  the 
mystery  of  His  Incarnation.  This  is  no 
''  modern  thought"  ;  it  is  the  old  profane- 
ness  of  Celsus.  Even  Tertullian^  is  cen- 
sured by  the  devout  and  learned  Pearson 
for  too  great  freedom  of  phrase,  though  he 
restricts  this  self-humiliation  to  His  *'  ter- 

'  Coloss.  ii.  3,  9 ;  Philipp.  ii.  7.  On  the  Kivuaiq, 
see  Pearson  (on  the  Creed),  p.  156.     Ed.  Oxford,  1890. 

2  "Ante-Nicene  Fathers  "  (translated),  vol.  iii.,  p. 
530.     Ed.  Buffalo,  1885. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  157 

rene  flesh,  which  made  all  things  else 
about  Him  Wonderful;  as  when  they  said : 
*  Whence  hath  this  man  this  wisdom? '  " 

The  Dutch  and  German  critics  assume 
the  "  human  element  "  whenever  they  pick 
up  a  bit  of  manna  which  their  dyspeptic 
element  cannot  inwardly  digest.  Upon  the 
living  and  life-giving  text  of  Holy  Writ 
they  sit  anatomizing,  as  if  it  were  a  vulgar 
corpse  for  dissection.  But  the  Christian 
assumes  the  very  reverse :  he  accepts  the 
canon  as  holy,  and  as  something  not  to  be 
subjected  to  ''private  interpretation";  as 
instinct  with  divinity,  and  a  frame-work  on 
which  it  is  impiety  for  the  individual  mind 
to  inflict  a  scar.  Not  this,  but  *'  the 
Church's  consciousness  "  is  the  only  lawful 
court  of  appeal,  as  Kahnis  and  Auberlen 
have  found  it.  And  this  principle  practi- 
cally excludes  all  scepticism,  from  a  rever- 
ent mind,  so  rarely  does  one  indisposed  to 
cavil  encounter  a  real  difficulty. 

Not   a  jot  or  tittle   which  touches   the 


158  HOLY    WRIT 

Nicene  Creed  can  be  proved  a  human  ele- 
ment ;  no,  not  even  the  text  of  **  the 
Three  Witnesses."  This  text  cannot  be 
quoted  as  indubitable  Scripture,  and  hence 
should  never  be  appealed  to  for  proof,  yet 
it  says  nothing  but  what  Scripture  says 
elsewhere;  just  what  the  Church  itself  has 
always  testified.  Therefore,  like  the  words 
of  Elihu,  where  he  says  what  Job  says,  and 
says  what  all  Scripture  confirms,  we  rever- 
ently accept  it  as  doctrine,  while  we  would 
not  cite  it  to  confirm  any  dogma.  Though 
the  propriety  of  excluding  it  has  never 
been  proved,  it  could  not  now  be  inserted 
— which  is  a  different  thing — on  the  text- 
ual evidence  in  the  possession  of  us  Mod- 
erns. But  it  proves  volumes  for  the 
Scriptures  as  we  have  them,  that  this  one 
case  is  exceptional,  and  stands  quite  alone. 
In  a  word,  then,  even  the  criticisms  of 
the  adversary  may  contribute  here  and  there 
a  marginal  note  to  our  English  Bible,  and 
many  conjectural  annotations  to  commen- 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 59 

taries.  They  may  point  to  apparent  indi- 
cations of  the  "  human  element  "  in  vexed 
passages,  but  they  cannot  prove  deductions 
merely  conjectural.  They  may  also  dem- 
onstrate that  certain  ancient  manuscripts 
have  been  too  much  relied  upon ;  or  that 
others  have  been  too  little  appreciated. 
But  nothing  which  they  suggest  as  emen- 
dation is  referable  to  any  standard  that 
Christians  can  accept,  or  to  any  unanimity 
among  the  critics  as  to  what  should  be 
done  with  conjectures  resting  generally  on 
the  **  consciousness  "  of  one  author,  with 
which  the  "  consciousness  "  of  others  does 
not  correspond.  As,  for  example,  in  spite 
of  all  that  almost  every  rationalist  has 
claimed  as  proven  against  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  we  have  seen  that  Renan  finds  no 
reason  to  alter  his  conviction  (which  he  im- 
agines helps  his  particular  theory)  that  the 
objections  amount  to  nothing.  Strauss  has 
proved  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  the 
Gospels  were  purposeless  fables.     Not  to 


l60  HOLY    WRIT 

be  behind  others  who  went  further,  how- 
ever, he  pronounces!  "^  great  part  of 
these  accounts — t/ie  FoiLvth  Gospel^  espe- 
cially— to  have  been  gotten  up  for  party 
purposes."  Hitzig  decides  that  the  Epistle 
to  the  Philippians  is  "  plagiarized  from  the 
*Agricola '  of  Tacitus."  As  a  specimen  of 
his  acumen,  this  author  derives  the  name 
of  ^sop  from  *'  the  hyssop  that  springeth 
out  of  the  wall."  This  is  the  class  of  crit- 
ics who  build  theories  on  the  "  human 
element" — a  school  to  which  Matthew 
Arnold  ascribes  *'  great  force  of  critical 
opinion."  The  threshings  and  winnowings 
of  this  **  higher  criticism"  leave  little  of 
the  sheaves,  except  tares  and  chaflf,  in 
the  hand  of  the  husbandman.  What  they 
would  sweep  away  is  precious  seed  that 
lies,  safe  and  sound,  upon  the  floor,  or  is 
gathered  into  the  Church's  garner.  Let  a 
heathen  who  is  coming  to  the  Light,  re- 

1  Auberlen,   "Divine   Revelation,"  p.  287,  and  see 
more  of  Hitzig,  Lightfoot,  S.  R.  pp.  24,  25. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  l6l 

prove  those  who  turn  away  from  it.  **  The 
want  of  faith,"  says  Mozoomdar/  "  is  a 
dreadful  cause  of  evil  in  the  world ;  it  is 
the  killing  of  one  half  of  human  nature. 
.  .  .  The  men  who  profess  to  teach  re- 
ligion without  the  fulness  and  maturity  of 
faith  deserve  to  be  singled  out  as  blind 
leaders  of  the  blind." 

''Hail,  Holy  Light!"  Out  of  Dante's 
Inferno  it  is  sweet  to  mount  into  Paradise. 
We  have  gained  the  loftier  plane  of  the 
Highest  Criticism ;  of  thought  uplifted  by 
faith,  and  hope,  and  love,  above  the  ma- 
terial, the  gross,  the  sensual,  and  profane. 
There  is  criticism  which  pierces  to  the 
kernel  and  sticks  not  in  the  bark ;  which 
sees  through  the  veil  of  the  letter  and 
communes  with  the  ethereal  spirit ;  which 
halts  not  with  dialect  and  idiom,  though 
it  analyzes  language  in  all  its  forms  ;  which 
deals  with  style  as  the  vehicle  of  mental 
force,   but  as  not  infrequently  the   stamp 

1  "  Oriental  Christ,"  pp.  104,  105. 


1 62  HOLY    WRIT 

and  imprint  of  God,  speaking  with  the 
voice  of  man.  It  explores  the  artificial 
varieties  of  rhetoric  and  poetry,  like  the 
merchantman  "  seeking  goodly  pearls  "  ; 
it  identifies  itself  with  the  author,  his  indi- 
viduality, his  times,  and  surroundings ;  it 
leaves  ample  room  and  verge  for  the  hu- 
man element,  but,  by  a  critical  instinct,  it 
recognizes  everywhere,  as  inseparable  from 
its  operations,  a  suffusing  spirit,  the  living 
and  light-giving  element  of  Divine  inspi- 
ration. And  so  we  come  to  men  of  faith, 
to  the  true  critics,  to  the  thought  of  ages ; 
to  the  sacred  canon,  whole  and  undefiled ; 
settled  and  defined  from  the  beginning; 
settled  in  the  only  times  and  by  the  only 
court  in  which  such  definition  was  possi- 
ble; settled  by  contemporaneous  evidence 
compared  with  which  the  guesses  and  ob- 
jections of  *'  modern  thought "  present  no 
case  for  judicial  reopening. 

It  has  been  well  remarked^  that  "  ob- 

'  Pusey,  Preface  to  his  "  Daniel." 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 63 

jectors  of   old  were    as  acute  as  now,  or 
more  acute  than  those  now;"  and  they  did 
their  worst   from  the   days   of  Alexander 
the  coppersmith  to  those  of  Juhan  the  Em- 
peror.   ''  It  would  be  difficult,  probably,  to 
invent   a  new  heresy."  ^  .   .   .   **  The  Jews 
tried  what  pseudo-criticism  could  do  against 
the  prophecies  2  as  to  our  Lord  and   His 
Church."     But  over  against  them,  in  the 
city  of  books  and  of  scholars,  rose  up  that 
colossal  succession  of  the  Faith's  defenders 
whose  criticism  is  the  highest,  as  it  was  the 
earliest,  in  the  Noviis  Ordo  Sceclorttm,  the 
Era  of  Light.    Beginning  with  St.  Mark,  in 
all  probability,  and  with  not  less  likelihood 
counting  among  its  founders  Apollos,  ''  the 
logical,    and    mighty  in    the   Scriptures," 
the   School  of  Alexandria  is  the   earliest 
comment  of  history  on  the  words  of  Christ 
to  the  fishermen—"  Ye  are  the  light  of  the  * 
world."    Who  among  the  heroes  of  **  mod- 

1  Pusey,  lit  supra. 

2  See   one   of    the   eighteen    places    altered   by   the 
Scribes,  in  Pearson  {tit  supra),  p.  361. 


1 64  HOLY    WRIT 

ern  thought"  can  be  named  as  considera- 
ble, when  compared  with  Pantaenus,  that 
**  SiciHan  bee,"  who  imparted  ''the  death- 
less element  of  knowledge"  to  his  successor 
Clement  the  Athenian,  born  under  the 
Antonines,  but  converted  to  Christ,  and 
rearing  up  Origen  as  his  pupil?  Of  this 
illustrious  critic  says  Cyril  of  Alexandria, 
"  he  was  a  man  admirably  learned  and 
skilful,  and  one  that  searched  to  the  depths 
all  the  learning  of  the  Greeks,  zvith  mi  ex- 
actness rarely  attained  before y  Alexander 
of  Jerusalem  eulogizes  him  as  his  master, 
"  greatly  useful  and  helpful."  Theodoret 
says :  ''  He  surpassed  all  others,  and  was  a 
holy  man."  Eusebius  applauds  him  as 
**  incomparable  "  in  the  mastery  of  Chris- 
tian philosophy.  St.  Jerome  testifies  that 
he  was  the  most  learned  of  all  the  ancients. 
And  to  this  a  recent  scholar  and  translator 
sets  his  seal  when  he  says  'A  "So  multifari- 

1  The  Rev.  Wm.  Wilson,  Edinburgh,  1868.  See 
also  "Ante-Nicene  Fathers,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  165,  166.  Ed. 
Buffalo,  1885. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 65 

ous  is  the  erudition,  so  multitudinous  the 
quotations,  and  the  references  to  authors 
(in  all  departments  and  of  all  countries), 
most  of  whose  works  have  perished,  that 
these  works  of  Clement  could  only  have 
been  composed  near  an  extensive  library 
— hardly  anywhere  but  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  famous  Library  of  Alexandria.'' 

And  as  a  critic  and  collector  of  the 
Scriptures,  who  shall  be  compared  with  the 
encyclopaedic  Origen ;  erratic  as  a  theolo- 
gian, indeed,  but  in  the  creation  of  his 
"  Hexapla,"  the  prince  of  critical  scholars, 
and  the  benefactor  of  the  human  race.  Epi- 
phanius  reckons  up  his  works,  greater  and 
less,  his  treatises  and  essays,  as  amounting 
in  all  to  the  number  of  6000 ;  and  Jerome 
is  justified  in  saying  that  he  wrote  more 
than  anybody  could  read.  Isaac  Barrow 
calls  him  ''  the  father  of  interpreters." 
Scrivener,!  a  master  of  '*  textual  criticism," 

1  "  Introduction  to  the  Criticism  of  the  N.  T.," 
p.  451.      Ed.  Cambridge,  1874. 


1 66  HOLY    WRIT 

after  comparing  his  work  with  what  "  six- 
teen more  centuries  have  produced,"  says : 
"  Seldom  have  such  warmth  of  fancy  and 
so  bold  a  grasp  of  mind  been  united  with 
the  life-long,  patient  industry  which  pro- 
cured for  this  famous  man  the  honourable 
appellation  of  the  Adamantine''  What 
more  need  I  say  of  this  great  school  than 
that  it  culminated  in  Athanasius,  who 
stood  "against  the  world,"  when  it  wav- 
ered as  to  the  faith,  and  reconquered  it  for 
Christ.  In  the  West,  St.  Jerome  became 
the  father  of  Biblical  learning,  but  he 
wrought  with  the  '' Hexapla"  before  him, 
in  the  *'  very  autograph  "  of  Origen.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  innumerable 
copies  of  the  Scriptures  had  perished  in 
the  Diocletian  persecution,  but  that  the 
continuity  from  Origen  was  never  lost ;  for, 
as  Scrivener  puts  it,  "  From  Jerome's  time 
downward,  the  stream  of  extant  and  direct 
manuscript  evidence  flows  on  without  in- 
terruption." 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 67 

This  glance  at  the  great  Fathers  of 
Scripture  criticism  is  important  for  sev- 
eral reasons.  (i)  It  establishes  the  fact 
that  *'  modern  thought "  and  '*  higher 
criticism "  cannot  be  compared  with  the 
highest;  and  it  reflects  merited  disgrace 
on  those  of  the  moderns  who  have  spoken 
of  these  giants  of  the  old  time  before  us  as 
inferior  to  themselves.  So  that  "  thrice- 
battered  "  author  of  the  Essay  on  Siipe7'- 
iiahiral  Religion  ventured  to  speak  of 
"  the  thorongJily  uncritical  character  of  the 
Fathers,  and  the  slight  dependence  which 
can  be  placed  upon  their  judgments,"  i.e., 
as  compared  with  his  own,  or  with  Hitzig 
and  other  Germans  on  whom  he  relies. ^ 
We  venture  to  believe  **  the  old  is  better." 
Personally,  these  ancients  have  had  no  su- 
periors In  our  day ;  and  their  own  day  was 
the  only  day  in  which  the  essential  evi- 
dence could  be  supplied,  or  in  which  ma- 

1  Note  Lightfoot's  remarks  on  this  subject,  passim  ; 
and  pp.  268-9,  for  ^"  interesting  discussion. 


1 68  HOLY    WRIT 

terials  could  be  identified  with  originals,  or 
rejected  as  impure. 

And  (2)  it  may  be  said,  as  it  has  been 
constantly  assumed  in  argument  against 
the  canon,  that  great  diversities  of  mind 
and  character  existed  among  these  ancient 
scholars,  so  that  they  often  lend  no  little 
help  to  modern  objectors.  As  I  am  now- 
proving  that  the  Fathers,  by  whose  aid  and 
services  the  Church  was  able  to  construct 
and  settle  the  canon,  zvere  in  all  respects 
critics  the  best  qualified  for  their  sacred 
task,  it  must  be  evident  that  my  point  is 
greatly  sharpened  by  this  fact.  It  is  a  con- 
cession that  there  is  hardly  anything  now 
called  ''modern  thought"  which  those 
Fathers  had  not  considered,  candidly  dis- 
cussed, weighed,  and  practically  rejected. 
For  the  Church  is  not  merely  "  the  keeper 
of  Holy  Writ,"  she  is  also  its  faithful 
"witness."  Most  important  to  my  argu- 
ment, therefore,  is  the  fact  that  my  valued 
friend,  Dean  Stanley,  and  others  who  have 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 69 

ventured  with  him,  to  the  very  verge  of 
falling,  had  also  their  less  blameworthy 
counterparts  in  the  ages  before  the  great 
Synodical  period,  which  made  an  *'  end  of 
controversy"  on  so  many  points;  which 
settled  the  canon  forever,  and  closed  in- 
numerable questions  which  cannot  be  re- 
opened without  shipwreck  of  faith.  I  have 
already  reminded  you  of  the  fact  that  mod- 
ern German  theology  owes  its  chaotic 
character  entirely  to  its  loss  of  catholicity, 
and  to  practical  ideas  of  Scripture  as  so 
many  SibyUine  leaves,  thrown  loosely  into 
the  world,  to  be  picked  up  or  to  perish, 
without  any  care  to  commit  it  to  a  faith- 
ful stewardship  on  His  part  who  watches 
over  even  the  sparrow's  fall.  We  know 
that  the  oracles  of  God  were  committed  to 
the  churches,  and  so  to  that  Catholic  and 
Apostolic  Church,  which  cannot  be  de- 
stroyed; which  exists  in  continuity  and 
perpetuity  as  "  the  pillar  and  ground  of 
the  Truth." 


I70  HOLY    WRIT 

For  (3)  not  Clement,  nor  Orlgen,  nor 
Athanasius,  nor  Jerome,  nor  any  doctor 
of  the  primitive  ages,  was  the  arbiter  of 
the  canon,  or  ever  imagined  himself  to  be 
other  than  a  disciple  of  the  Apostles  and 
of  their  successors,  in  all  the  churches  of 
Christ,  or  to  deserve  consideration  apart 
from  .^trict  fidelity  to  their  testimony  and 
to  '*  the  Faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints." 
Much  less  was  the  canon  subjected  to  a 
decisive  voice  from  any  particular  see. 
Alexandria  was  then  the  mistress  of  the 
schools,  and  foremost  among  Apostolic 
churches.  Not  she,  nevertheless,  nor  Jeru- 
salem, nor  Antioch,  nor  their  younger  sister 
Rome,  could  claim  any  supremacy  in  judg- 
ment. Nay,  verily,  for  all  the  accumula- 
tions of  testimony  and  research;  all  the 
genius  and  zeal  of  heroic  martyrs  and  elo- 
quent preachers ;  all  tradition  and  all  learn- 
ing, were  submitted  to  the  severest  tests 
of  the  churches  everywhere ;  and  so  the 
canon  was  ultimately  settled,  and  made  the 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  I?! 

blessed  inheritance  of  all  believers,  and  (as 
it  has  proved  itself)  the  source  of  all  hu- 
man enlightenment,  as  well  as  of  infinite 
consolation  in  this  Hfe  and  of  hopes  beyond 
the  grave.  Happily,  (4)  any  Christian  whose 
learning  and  intelligence  are  equal  to  inves- 
tigation, has,  close  at  hand,  a  test  which  is 
all-sufficient  to  decide  whether  his  confi- 
dence in  Holy  Writ  shall  rest  on  the  proc- 
esses of  Baur  and  Paulus  and  Renan, 
eighteen  hundred  years  too  late,  and  not 
rather  upon  the  "  keeper  and  witness  "  of 
the  lively  oracles,  which  gathered  the 
same  in  the  ages  most  competent  to  tes- 
tify, and  which  had  known  those  who  had 
known  the  disciples  of  St.  John.  One  of 
these,  Irenaeus,  could  certify  to  the  book 
which  he  himself  received  from  Polycarp, 
which  Polycarp  received  from  the  Beloved 
Disciple.  Let  the  inquirer  go  to  any  li- 
brary where  good  editions  of  the  Fathers 
are  to  be  found,  and  simply  turn  to  their 
indexes,  in  the  works  of  the  Fathers  who 


172  HOLY    WRIT 

lived  and  suffered  before  Nicaea.i  Those 
indexes  show  the  canon  just  as  we  have  it; 
and  if  the  inquirer  gives  time  and  attention 
to  what  the  Fathers  say  of  these  Scriptures, 
he  will  see  that  they  cited  them  as  Holy 
Writ ;  as  the  lively  oracles ;  as  the  Word 
of  Christ  and  of  God;  and  appealed  to 
them  as  testimony  apart  from  which  noth- 
ing might  be  taught  as  of  the  Christian, 
that  is,  the  Catholic,  Faith. 

And  thus  I  have  appealed  to  evidence 
which  establishes  the  Scriptures  on  prin- 
ciples of  wisdom  purely  human — such  as 
agree  with  the  maxims  of  jurisprudence. 
The  evidence  that  is  conclusive  must  be 
that  of  contemporaries — say  the  judges. 
The  American  Constitution  is  to  be  studied 
and   understood  by  the  writings  of  those 

'  Though  the  plan  of  a  General  Bibliography  and 
Index  was  suggested  by  me,  for  the  American  edition 
of  the  "Ante-Nicene  Fathers,"  it  was  wholly  executed 
by  my  learned  friend,  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Richardson.  I  may 
commend  it,  therefore,  as  a  most  valuable  specimen  of 
the  kind  of  work  to  which  I  refer. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  173 

who  framed  it,  and — by  the  continuous 
decisions  of  this  tribunal — adds  our  Su- 
preme Court.  Precisely  analagous  is  what 
Tertullian  ruled  in  the  questions  we  have 
considered:  and  for  the  outside  world 
such  is  our  reply.  But,  thank  God,  while 
accepting  all  this,  the  Christian  confides 
in  something  that  seals,  confirms,  and 
infinitely  magnifies  the  same.  Not  only 
has  he  a  supreme  court  in  the  Church 
itself,  which  has  adopted  all  the  proc- 
esses exacted  by  the  world,  and  has 
convinced  the  best  and  wisest  of  men  by 
the  same,  but  we  know  that  this  she  did, 
with  the  ever-present  and  abiding  help 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  has  led  her  into 
all  truth;  he  has  never  permitted  the 
whole  Church  to  ''follow  cunningly  de- 
vised fables;"  he  has  fulfilled  the  Master's 
promise,!  by  bringing  to  mind  and  pre- 
serving in  her,  and  for  her,  all  things  what- 

1  St.  John  xvi.  13.     Compare  with  this  and  the  pre- 
vious chapter,  St.  Matthew  xxviii.  20. 


174  HOLY    WRIT 

soever  the  Master  taught  and  commanded. 
What  we  call  the  Bible,  then,  in  the  light 
of  the  highest  criticism,  is  a  sacred  library, 
the  divers  parts  of  which  are  authenticated 
as  was  never  any  other  book  in  the  world. 
Its  history  requires  us  to  treat  it  as  wholly 
unlike  all  other  books,  even  if  we  begin 
our  researches  by  supposing  the  reverse. 
It  differs  fundamentally  from  anything 
ever  devised  or  put  together  by  the  art  of 
man.  Its  two  portions,  the  Old  and  the 
New,  are  one  entire  whole,  corresponding 
as  the  wax  and  the  seal,  as  the  boss  and 
the  die,  as  the  minted  coin  and  the  graven 
incision  of  its  stamp.  To  illustrate,  I  quote 
from  the  pages  of  the  studious  Hindu, 
who,  with  the  instincts  of  an  Asiatic,  has 
discovered  this  in  his  own  way.^  He  says, 
quoting  another  of  his  own  kind  :  "  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  the  evolution  of  the  di- 
vine purpose  in  the  order  and  history  of 
religion ;   a  logical  sequence  in  the  dispen- 

'  Mozoomdar,  tct  stipra,  pp.  135,  136. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  I  75 

sations  of  Faith.  .  .  .  They  are  linked  to- 
gether in  one  continuous  chain,  which  can 
be  traced  to  the  earHest  age.  ...  In  Jesus 
we  see  the  logical  sequence  of  Moses ;  the 
New  Testament  is  the  necessary  sequence 
of  the  Old.  .  .  .  Moses  taught  stern  jus- 
tice, and  inaugurated  the  kingdom  of  law ; 
Jesus  taught  love,  and  inaugurated  the 
kingdom  of  grace.  The  theology  of  love 
is  the  logical  complement  of  the  theology 
of  fear;  the  two  form  one  integral  Gospel 
and  are  indissolubly  connected."  Truly 
this  Hindu  might  teach  half  of  Germany 
and  Holland  "  which  be  the  first  principles 
of  the  oracles  of  God."^ 

Take,  then,  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
Covenant,  and  observe  that  of  these  there 
can  be  no  question ;  they  were  read,  coun- 
tersigned, sealed,  and  delivered  afresh  to 
their  new  keeper  and  witness,  the  Church, 
which  is  His  body,  by  the  Incarnate  God. 
He  who  denies  this,  like  the  impugners  of 
1  Heb.  V.  12. 


176  HOLY    WRIT 

the  Book  of  Daniel,  has  ceased  to  be  a 
Christian.  But  let  us  take  it  up  like  a 
heathen,  if  you  will,  and  see  to  what  you 
will  be  led,  nay  forced,  by  the  facts. 

When  poor  Frederick  of  Prussia  said  to 
his  court-chaplain.  Dr.  Jablonski :  "  I  have 
no  time  to  study  big  books ;  give  me  in 
fewest  words  the  surest  evidence  of  your 
religion,"  the  reply  was  all-sufficient,  and 
marvellously  comprehensive.  The  chaplain 
answered  in  two  words  :  **  Sire — the  Jews'' 
Let  the  unhappy  disciples  of  Frederick  and 
Voltaire  look  at  these  two  words  and  con- 
sider what  they  imply.  A  phenomenon 
stretching  through  the  ages,  from  a  period 
to  which  the  monuments  and  the  memory 
of  man  run  not  contrary ;  here  are  the 
Jews — everywhere  are  the  Jews — where 
are  they  not  ?  Look  at  them ;  frame,  if 
you  can,  any  theory  about  them  which 
corresponds  with  admitted  facts,  other 
than  that  which  the  Church  and  her  New 
Testament  maintain,  and  when  you   have 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  I  77 

done  this  there  will  be  something  original 
in  your  ''  modern  thought." 

Can  any  one  in  his  senses  deny  that 
here  is  a  stupendous  prophecy  unanswer- 
ably fulfilled?  Very  well.  The  enemy 
has  staked  his  whole  adventure  into  the 
chaos  of  "  Rationalism,"  on  the  proposi- 
tions (i),  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
miracle ;  (2),  no  such  thing  as  prophecy. 
One  prophecy  fulfilled  overthrows  their 
whole  fabric  of  doubt.  For  prophecy 
itself  is  miracle,  and  its  fulfilment,  if  it 
proves  the  prophecy,  is  likewise  a  miracle. 
The  supernatural  is  manifest  in  both,  and 
this  established,  their  *'  rationahsm "  is 
unreason  and  unbelief,  as  bad  in  philoso- 
phy as  it  is  corrosive  in  personal  morals 
and  destructive  in  human  society.  For  the 
dispersion  and  actual  condition  of  the 
Jews,  as  known  and  read  of  all  men,  is 
itself  a  stupendous  fulfilment  of  prophecy. 
Take  their  own  prophets  from  them,  and 
we  read  of   just  what  has  come  to  pass. 


178  HOLY    WRIT 

We  behold  their  temple  destroyed,  for 
more  than  eighteen  hundred  years,  and 
Jerusalem  (her  sacrifices  ceased)  over- 
spread with  abominations,  as  foretold  in 
sorrowing  words  by  their  own  Daniel,  and 
out  of  Daniel  by  the  Man  Jesus.  Scat- 
tered among  all  peoples,  and  assimilated 
with  none,  an  enigma  beyond  solution, 
save  in  the  light  of  the  Scriptures,  we 
may  say  that  their  canon,  and  ours  too, 
comes  to  us  bound  up  in  them  and  with 
them.  "  For  what  advantage  then  hath  the 
Jew?"  asks  the  Jew  of  Tarsus,^  and  he 
answers :  *'  Much  every  way ;  chiefly  be- 
cause that  imto  them  were  committed  the 
oracles  of  God.''  How  well  they  kept  this 
trust  let  the  pupil  of  Gamaliel  and  his  glo- 
rious Master  teach  us,  not  only  by  their 
positive  testimony,  but  by  the  overwhelm- 
ing logic  of  their  silence.  Not  a  hint  that 
in  this  their  chief  stewardship  the  Jews 
were  unfaithful.      ''  Search  the  Scriptures," 

*  Rom.  iii.  i,  2. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  I  79 

said  Jesus,  "they  testify  of  Me,"  He 
appeals  over  and  over  again  to  these,  as 
they  were  *'  read  in  their  synagogues  every 
Sabbath  day."  He  comes  ''to  fulfil  the 
law  and  the  prophets;"  not  ''to  destroy," 
but  to  pledge  Himself  that  "  heaven  and 
earth  should  pass  away,  but  His  Word 
should  not  pass  away."  And  reflect  that 
His  words  confirm  the  Psalms,  and  all  the 
prophets,  including  Job  and  Daniel  and 
Isaiah:  yes,  and  "the  Scriptures"  as  a 
whole,  as  that  phrase  was  understood 
by  all  the  Jews.  Their  Masorites  watched 
every  letter  in  the  volume  of  the  Book. 
They  kept  it  in  rolls  and  parchments  and 
costly  envelopes,  with  tinkling  bells  and 
enrichments.  The  daughters  of  Jerusalem 
recalled  the  Psalms  when  they  sat  down 
by  the  rivers  of  Babylon;  the  Ethiopian 
proselyte  carried  Isaiah  as  a  treasure,  and 
read  it  as  he  returned  to  Candace  his 
queen;  Lydia  and  her  faithful  compan- 
ions, not  less  by  the  waters  of  Macedonia, 


l8o  HOLY    WRIT 

recited  the  same  law  and  the  same  Psalter, 
in  a  place  by  the  river  side^  "  where  prayer 
was  wont  to  be  made."  So  not  in  syna- 
gogues only,  but  bound  up  and  handed 
down  by  the  circumcised  race  of  Moses, 
were  those  Scriptures  taught  to  Timothy 
by  the  holy  women  Lois  and  Eunice.  If, 
in  spite  of  all  this,  the  Jews,  to  whom  He 
came  as  the  son  of  David,  rejected  Him, 
let  us  thank  God  for  His  glorious  Inter- 
cession, "  Father,  forgive  them,"  while  we 
dwell  on  His  tender  expostulation  and  point 
to  His  accomplished  prophecy.  He  says  : 
**  How  often  would  I  have  gathered  you 
.  .  .  and  ye  would  not!  Behold  your 
house  is  left  unto  you  desolate.  .  .  .  And 
ye  shall  be  led  away  captive  into  all  nations  : 
and  Jerusalem  shall  be  trodden  down  of 
the  Gentiles,  until  the  times  of  the  Gentiles 
be  fulfilled."!  Thank  God  for  that  word 
"  until."     Thank  God  for  the  hope  for  Ju- 

1  Compare  St.  Matthe\v^  xxiii.  34  and  xxiv.  to  verse 
28,  and  St.  Luke  xix.  41-44. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  l8l 

dah  inspired  by  the  incomparable  prayer, 
"  Father,  forgive  them ;  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do." 

But  how  like  the  ''  letting  out  of  water  " 
from  a  Holland  dyke  is  the  violation  of  the 
good  rule,  Quieta  non  movere.  Take  an 
example  that  illustrates  the  whole  history 
of  the  *'  higher  criticism  "  as  against  the 
highest.  Take  the  crucial  inquiry  about 
Koheleth,  or  the  canonical  Book  of  Eccle- 
siastes.  A  learned  writer^  who  has  done 
much  to  shed  light  on  this  and  other  Bib- 
lical questions,  but  with  whose  position  on 
one  point  I  cannot  agree,  gives  us  the  fol- 
lowing overwhelming  statement  as  to  the 
continuous  and  concurrent  testimony  of  the 
Hebrews  and  of  Christians  in  favour  of  its 
rightful  place  in  Holy  Writ :  *'  It  must  be 
conceded,  at  the  very  outset,  that  no  dis- 
tinct evidence  can  be  adduced  of  any 
doubts  having  been  expressed  as  to  the 

1  Dr.  Ward  on  Ecclesiastes,  pp.  80,  8 1.  Ed.  London, 
1883. 


1 82  HOLY    WRIT 

Solomonic  authorship  of  the  book  earlier 
than  the  period  of  the  Reformation.  The 
*  Seventy '  and  the  Alexandrian  Jews  re- 
garded it  as  the  veritable  production  of  the 
great  monarch  of  Israel. i  Luther,  in  his 
'  Table  Talk,'  was  the  first  who  ventured 
distinctly  to  deny  the  Solomonic  author- 
ship, and  the  great  Dutch  scholar,  Hugo 
Grotius,  more  than  a  century  later,  was  the 
first  who  ventured  to  assign  critical  argu- 
ments— not,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  of  the 
most  cogent  character — in  support  of  that 
novel  opinion."  What  then  has  a  Christian 
to  do  with  his  opinion  ?  To  his  credit,  even 
Luther  seems  in  later  years  to  have  aban- 
doned the  novelty ;  but  when  Grotius  took  it 
up  with  rodent  genius,  his  fellow  Hollander, 
Spinoza,  rent  the  crevice  into  a  crevasse^ 
and  lo !  *'  the  brook  became  a  river  and  the 
river  became  a  sea,"  as  happens  so  fre- 

iNote   XXIII. 

2  An  Americanism  learned  from  the  Creoles  of  the 
Lower  Mississippi. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 83 

quently  in  the  Netherlands,  even  down  to 
our  times.  But,  continues  our  author, 
"Although  the  judgment  of  antiquity  in 
favour  of  the  Solomonic  authorship  ap- 
pears to  have  been  tnianimoiis,''  etc. : — 
Well,  what  more  do  we  want  ?  In  a  word, 
he  finds  reasons  to  dissent,  goes  back  to 
what  Luther  could  not  maintain,  and  de- 
tracts from  the  value  of  his  own  important 
work  by  his  surrender  of  this  point  to  im- 
pugners  of  the  sacred  canon.  Pray,  how  can 
he,  in  these  days,  know  more  about  it  than 
all  the  elders  of  the  synagogue ;  than  the 
*'  Seventy  "  and  all  their  learned  contem- 
poraries; than  the  whole  company  of  the 
apostles ;  nay,  than  our  blessed  Master 
Himself,  and  His  Holy  Church,  for  well- 
nigh  twenty  centuries?  He  shrinks  from 
his  own  argument,  apparently,  when,  after 
all,  he  modestly  claims  for  it  ^  no  more  than 
that  it  is  "  highly  probable." 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  pause  a  minute 

1  Wright,  iit  supra,  p.  109. 


1 84  HOLY    WRIT 

for  some  further  inquiry  as  to  so  curious  a 
phenomenon.  What  makes  it  ''  highly- 
probable  "  against  the  torrent  of  all  testi- 
mony and  evidence?  M.  Renan,  when 
he  wished  to  sustain  his  idea  that  it 
teaches  scepticism,  vigorously  supported 
the  Church's  traditions  as  to  its  author  and 
its  place  in  the  canon ;  afterwards  it  suited 
him  better  to  take  a  position  directly  the 
reverse.  Now,  let  us  note  how  easy  it  is 
for  such  a  brilliant  scholar  to  make  out  a 
case  on  either  side  of  so  great  a  matter, 
just  as  his  caprice  incHnes  him  to  this  or 
that. 

(i)  The  linguistic  peculiarities  of  the 
work,  its  Aramaisms  more  especially,  hav- 
ing been  made  a  favourite  argument  against 
the  testimony  of  antiquity,  M.  Renan  thus 
decides  :  '*  When  the  question  is  to  deter- 
mine the  age  of  different  writings  in  He- 
brew literature,  this  criterion  (as  to  Ara- 
maic words  and  phrases)  should  never  be 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 85 

emJ>loyed  without  certain  precautions."  ^  He 
can7iot  conceive  of  such  works  as  the  books 
of  Job,  Koheleth,  and  the  Canticles,  as  hav- 
ing been  created  in  the  period  of  intellect- 
ual decadence  which  he  ascribes  to  the 
Jews  after  the  Captivity.  He  hesitates  not 
to  ascribe  them  to  the  epoch  of  Solomon, 
**  a  period  so  liberal  and  so  brilliant  in  the 
history  of  Hebrew  genius." 

(2)  But  what  he  could  not  conceive  of, 
when  he  supposed  a  Canonical  fact  most 
likely  to  prove  damaging  to  Christianity, 
he  is  quite  satisfied  to  accept  when  in- 
spired by  another  idea.  And  so,  now  **  it 
is  certainly  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
more  modern  books  of  the  Hebrew  Hter- 
ature."  Its  very  language  proves  it  to  be 
a  modern  book;  it  and  the  Canticles  are  a 
few  profane  pages  which  have  found  their 
way  into  that   '*  strange  and   admirable " 

1  I  translate  from  the  original,  which  Dr.  Ward  so 
generously  supplies  in  his  book,  p.  117. 


1 86  HOLY    WRIT 

volume  which  is  termed  the  Bible.  More 
to  the  same  effect.^ 

But  although  these  assertions  as  to  the 
later  origin  of  the  Book  give  colour  to 
Dr.  Ward's  own  ingenious  theory,  he  is  too 
candid  not  to  expose  the  perverse  argu- 
mentation of  M.  Renan  in  its  true  charac- 
ter. He  says  :  His  **  study  "  of  this  Book 
"  has  not  thrown  that  light  upon  its  age 
and  character  which  might  have  been 
expected  from  a  scholar  of  his  celebrity. 
As  an  article,  his  essay  may  be 
deemed  brilliant ;  but  judged  as  a  contri- 
bution to  the  understanding  of  Kohelethy 
it  is  of  little  value,  and  must  be  character- 
ized 2l'^  flippant  y 

Dr.  Ward's  own  pages  contain  abundant 
proof  that  nobody  will  ever  be  able  to  con- 
struct any  theory  on  these  principles  of 
"higher  criticism  "  which  will  put  an  end 
to  the  ceaseless  inventions  and  ingenuities 
of  successive  authorities,  each  for  himself 

^  Dr.  Ward,  ttt  supra,  p.  126. 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 87 

arriving  at  certainlys  and  conclusively s  and 
finallys^  about  which  no  two  can  come  to 
any  agreement.  In  the  name  of  common 
sense,  then,  why  protract  such  a  discus- 
sion? What  all  antiquity  sustains  with 
unanimity  down  to  the  days  of  Martin  Lu- 
ther, in  fact,  down  to  the  days  of  Grotius, 
presents  not  any  difficulty  for  a  score  that 
must  be  encountered  when  one  leaps  from 
the  terra  firnia  of  testimony  and  unanimity 
into  the  quicksand  of  speculation,  or  the 
quagmires  of  private  judgment. 

The  Highest  Criticism,  on  the  other 
hand,  (i)  begins  by  accepting  this  unbroken 
testimony  and  consent,  as  resting  on  the 
authority  of  Christ  himself,  and  the  con- 
clusive witness  of  His  Church,  enlightened 
by  the  immanency  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
(2)  Critical  difficulties,  greater  or  less,  it 
examines  reverently,  under  St.  Peter's  pri- 
mary canon,^  "  Knowing  this  first — no 
prophecy  of  Scripture  is  of  private  inter- 

1  II.  Peter  i.  20,  21. 


1 88  HOLY    WRIT 

pretation.  For  no  prophecy  ever  came  hy 
the  will  of  man ^  but  men  spake  from  God, 
being  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  (3) 
From  any  source  it  accepts  light,  or  learned 
comment,  which  does  not  mar  the  integrity 
of  the  Book  and  is  consistent  with  these 
canons  of  interpretation.  (4)  Nothing  which 
it  seems  to  say  can  be  accepted  as  the 
true  meaning,  if  it  conflicts  with  less  enig- 
matical Scriptures.  (5)  If  the  highest 
criticism  meets  an  inexplicable  difficulty, 
though  this  is  contrary  to  all  experience, 
it  is  content  to  say,  Here  is  something  on 
which  we  have  no  sufficient  guide  to 
pronounce  our  judgments ;  it  is  a  "  dark 
saying,"  to  be  reverently  meditated  upon, 
with  the  prayer,  **  Keep  back  thy  servant 
also  from  presumptuous  sins." 

Now,  all  the  difficulties  of  M.  Renan  and 
others,  who  will  not  accept  these  canons, 
grow  out  of  their  rejection  of  them,  and 
out  of  their  proud  resolve  to  treat  God's 
Holy  Word  **  like  any  other  book  " — that 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  1 89 

is,  without  reference  to  its  character,  its 
pre-eminent  dignity,  and  the  history  which 
makes  it  wholly  unlike  any  other  book. 

And  where  is  any  real  difficulty  in  Kohe- 
leth,  if  we  take  it  just  as  it  is,  and  regard 
the  latter  chapters  as  "  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter,"  to  which  all  previous  reflec- 
tions on  the  mysteries  of  our  present  state 
of  being  lead  up  the  spirit  of  a  man  com- 
muning with  his  own  heart,  and  seeking 
the  rest  which  this  practical  conclusion 
alone  supplies  ?  It  is  a  very  useful  part  of 
Scripture,  if  made  the  material  of  medita- 
tion by  a  certain  class  of  men,  in  excep- 
tional experiences  and  certain  states  of 
mind.  At  the  outset,  it  supplies  a  sequel 
to  the  marvellous  history  of  Solomon,  apart 
from  which  many  painful  riddles  must  afflict 
the  believer.  It  completes  his  biography, 
and  rounds  his  career  into  an  intelligible 
whole.  It  implies  his  return  to  wisdom 
and  his  desire  to  bequeath  to  the  young 
the    lessons  taught  by    his  experience  of 


IQO  HOLY    WRIT 

folly,  and  by  the  horrible  retributions  of  his 
downfall.  It  is  therefore  a  most  striking 
sequel  to  the  Proverbs,  and  enables  us  to 
read  all  his  writings  with  the  thought  that 
he  **  died  not  as  the  fool  dieth."  Let  other 
difficulties  be  set  in  the  shining  light  of  the 
''  risen  Day  star,"  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and 
all  shadows  disappear.  That  is  the  noontide 
glory  that  throws  back  its  illumination  upon 
the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament,  making 
all  things  clear  for  the  practical  Christian. 

I  have  loved  and  studied  Kdheleth  from 
my  youth  up,  and  have  found  an  unspeak- 
able charm  in  its  suggestiveness,  answering 
to  so  many  moods  of  mind  and  experiences 
of  life.  Where  is  its  ''pessimism"  if  one 
studies  it  under  the  canons  I  have  named? 
Considered  as  Solomon's  own  legacy  to  the 
young  man,  it  seems  clear  that  he  divests 
himself  of  his  royalties  and  assumes  the 
task  of  a  preacher  of  righteousness,  in  sack- 
cloth and  as  with  ashes  on  his  head,  rebuk- 
ing his  own  sins  and  making  them  preach  a 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  191 

warning  to  others.  His  constant  reference 
to  God  is  the  token  of  his  abhorrence  of 
idolatry.  In  a  most  marked  key-note  of 
thoughts  which  inspired  his  song,  he  loathes 
his  adulteries  with  "  outlandish  women  "  ; 
with  "  the  woman  whose  heart  is  snares 
and  nets,  and  her  hands  as  bands."  While 
he  pleased  God  he  "escaped  her";  if  he 
was  '*  taken  by  her,"  it  was  because  he  was 
"  a  sinner. ' '  Among  "  a  thousand  ' ' — among 
"all  those"  wives  and  concubines  who 
are  numbered  as  "  a  thousand  "1  —  ''I  have 
not  found  one  woman  " ;  not  one  fit  to  be 
called  a  woman ;  such  as  I  have  praised 
elsewhere,  saying,  "  A  gracious  woman  re- 
taineth  honour."  2  And  so  his  pesshnistic 
complaints,  natural  to  even  good  men,  in 
certain  moods  of  mind,  as  in  the  case  of 
Job,  he  records  only  to  overrule  them. 
This  he  does  often  by  immediate  and  de- 
cisive contradiction;  he  reserves  the  rest 
for  his  majestic  peroration,  where,   again, 

'  I.  Kings  xi.  3.  2  Prov.  xi.  16. 


192  HOLY    WRIT 

he  falls  into  his  familiar  address,  '*  And 
further,  my  son,  by  these  be  admonished." 
Blessed  be  God  that  Solomon  repented  be- 
fore he  died,  and  crowned  all  his  wisdom 
by  anticipating  all  the  libraries  that  hu- 
man wit  should  create,  to  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  showing  the  comparative  van- 
ity of  all  the  books  that  should  be  written 
—  "  Higher  Criticism  "  and  **  Modern 
Thought"  included — that  should  fail  to 
impress  the  awful  idea  of  the  day  of 
judgment,  and  the  moral  of  its  certain 
approach :  "  Fear  God,  and  keep  His  com- 
mandments :  for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man." 

We  come  to  the  New  Testament  canon, 
which  rests  on  the  miracle  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, accomplishing  prophecy.  If  we  be- 
Heve  accordingly,  the  conclusion  is  plain. 
If  we  do  not  beHeve  in  Jesus  and  the 
resurrection,  we  are  not  Christians.  Let 
men  own  this,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it 
The  difficulty  is  with  those  who  profess  and 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 93 

call  themselves  Christians,  and  yet  surren- 
der the  Gospels  and  the  Scriptures  of  the 
apostles  to  the  enemies  of  Christ.  Let  me 
quote  one  of  these  enemies.  He  saysi^ 
"  Jesus,  the  great  Founder,  laid  the  base 
of  a  new  order  of  Humanity.  ...  It  is 
the  same  Jesus,  who,  by  the  sacred  flame, 
of  which  he  had  deposited  the  kindhng 
spark  in  the  hearts  of  divers  friends,  creates 
institutions  of  supreme  originality,  animates 
and  transforms  their  spirits,  and  stamps 
upon  the  whole  His  imprint  divine.  .  .  . 
Under  this  influence,  ever  actuating  and 
triumphant  over  death,  was  developed  the 
f^ith  of  the  resurrection,  of  the  influence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  gift  of  tongues, 
and  the  power  of  the  Church.  ...  In 
Antioch,  the  new  centre,  we  shall  see 
Christianity  separating  itself  definitely  from 
Judaism  and  receiving  its  name."  Dis- 
missing the  claims  of  the  "  superlatively 
great "  St.   Paul    and    of    other    apostles, 

'  **  Les  Apotres,"  ut  siipra^  p.  i.,  Introduction. 


194  HOLY    WRIT 

he  adds,  ''Nothing  is  more  false  than  the 
opinion  which  in  our  days  has  become 
so  fashionable,  by  which  St.  Paul  must  be 
accounted  the  true  founder  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Its  true  Founder  is  Jesus."  Such 
— I  say  it  not  irreverently — is  the  Gospel 
according  to  Renan.  And  thus  even  he 
reproves  the  "  other  gospel  "  which,  among 
many  teachers,  who  still  boast  themselves  to 
be  Christians,  "  has  become  so  fashionable." 
But,  observe,  Renan,  though  more  honest 
than  they,  yet  pronounces  Jesus  Himself 
deceived,  and  a  deceiver.  By  His  own 
confession  Jesus  must  be  a  second  Adam, 
the  founder  of  a  new  humanity.  Tliis 
youth  of  Nazareth,  who  dies  upon  the  cross, 
with  a  siiprevie  originality ,  creates  institu- 
tions that  have  awakened  the  world  to  the 
light  and  life  of  a  day  to  which  all  before 
it  and  beside  it  has  been  as  night.  And 
this  He  does  by  a  mere  spark,  implanted 
in  the  bosoms  of  a  few  fishermen  of  Galilee. 
Reflect  that  He  had  founded  no  institutions 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 95 

when  He  died;  had  implanted  in  His  dis- 
ciples' hearts  nothing  which  they  regarded 
as  providing  for  such  institutions ;  so  that, 
in  our  view,  all  that  Renan  recognizes  as 
the  supreme  originality  of  His  work,  though 
fully  accounted  for  if  He  rose  from  the 
dead  and  sent  His  Holy  Spirit  upon  His 
disciples,  is  a  miracle  not  less  than  the 
resurrection  itself,  if,  as  he  assumes,  this 
be  only  a  myth.  Think  of  it!  a  dead 
Christ,  and  one  withdrawn  forever  from 
sight,  and  leaving  nothing  but  the  impress 
of  His  words  and  His  three  years  of  per- 
sonal intercourse  upon  them,  he  transforms 
mankind  in  nations,  and  throughout  all 
the  world.  And  yet,  this  wonder-working 
Jesus,  according  to  this  new  evangel,  was 
consciously  guilty  of  fraud ;  "  an  Oriental 
without  the  Western  sense  of  truth,"  and 
with  a  *'  lower  standard  of  morality  "  than 
that  which  His  own  Gospel  has  impressed 
on  Western  nations !  Verily,  if  all  this  be 
true,  the  miracle  is  as  great  as  any  recorded 


196  HOLY    WRIT 

by  the  evangelists,^  and  the  disciple  of 
Renan  must  struggle  with  a  thousand  im- 
probabilities for  one.  Let  us  leave  such 
to  their  task  and  rise  to  our  own,  in  the 
power  of  a  *'  faith  which  removes  moun- 
tains "  by  the  solid  confession,  "  He  rose 
from  the  dead,  according  to  the  Scriptures.'' 
What  followed,  in  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  explains  all  that  was  done  at  An- 
tioch,  and  nothing,  not  supernatural,  can 
explain  the  facts  which  Renan  himself 
allows,  including  the  history  of  St.  Paul. 
Miracle  and  prophecy  both  established  by 
the  resurrection  of  our  Lord ;  the  gift  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  assures  us  of  Inspiration ; 
and  the  Church  as  "  the  pillar  and  ground 
of  the  truth,"  its  witness  and  keeper,  es- 
tablishes the  canon.  This  or  nothing: 
which?     Renan  gives  us  all  we  need  ask 

1  See  the  "  Christ  of  History,"  by  John  Young, 
LL.D.,  of  Edinburgh,  justly  characterized  as  "  a  wise 
and  severe  application  of  the  inductive  method  to  gos- 
pels not  disputed."  And  see  his  answer  to  Strauss, 
p.  257.     Ed.  New  York,  1855. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 97 

to  start  with,  and  then  bids  us  leap  into  a 
gulf  with  him;  denying  the  resurrection, 
and  asserting  that  this  marvellous  Jesus, 
the  author  of  a  regenerated  humanity,  owes 
his  success  to  His  complicity  in  a  fraud 
about  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus.  From 
this  your  conscience  starts  back,  but  there 
can  be  no  compromise.  The  abyss  is  ''  the 
bottomless  pit"  itself;  you  cannot  flatter 
yourself  with  *'  Modern  Thought "  and 
''  Higher  Criticism  "  that  the  abyss  is  like 
the  clififs  of  Dover,  and  that  you  may  arrest 
yourself  in  the  fall  and  hang 

'*  Half-way  down,  like  one  that  gathers  samphire." 

You  can't  be  a  disciple  of  Renan,  or  of 
those  who  adopt  his  processes  while  they 
recoil  from  his  conclusions,  without  ceasing 
to  "be  a  Christian. 

One  fact  I  have  noted,  though  always 
overlooked  by  the  adversary,  is  all-impor- 
tant to  the  case  :  the  fact  that  the  Christian 
ministry  had  no  existence  when  the  Master 


198  HOLY    WRIT 

died  on  the  cross.  Even  their  ministry  to 
"the  circumcision,"  which,  till  then,  was 
the  only  commission  of  the  Eleven  and 
of  the  Seventy,  was  dissolved  when  Jesus 
cried,  '*  It  is  finished."  The  disciples  re- 
turned to  their  nets,  with  no  further  thought 
of  being  *'  fishers  of  men  "  ;  nor  did  they, 
till  the  day  of  Pentecost,  begin  to  compre- 
hend their  new  mission  to  the  Jews  them- 
selves, much  less  that  they  had  any  mission 
to  the  Gentiles.  Only  the  vision  at  Joppa 
brought  light  to  the  eyes  of  St.  Peter  and 
sent  him  to  open  the  gates  of  the  Church 
to  the  nations  by  the  baptism  of  Cornelius. 
The  existence  and  the  succession  of  the 
Christian  ministry,  therefore,  must  be  ac- 
counted for  in  some  other  way,  as  has 
never  beeti  done,  or  we  must  hold  to  the 
recorded  facts,  which  alone  are  sufficient 
to  account  for  such  a  visible  phenomenon. 
That  is  to  say,  we  must  accept  the  resur- 
rection of  the  Lord  Jesus  to  found  the 
apostolic  ministry,  and  the  mission  of  the 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  1 99 

Comforter  to  qualify  and  to  perpetuate  it. 
This  ''original  institution"  was  the  in- 
heritor of  the  Old  Testament  canon ;  and 
it  alone  was  empowered  to  create  and  to 
accredit  the  New.  Reflect,  then,  that  if 
this  be  true,  the  collection  of  these  Scrip- 
tures was  rendered  a  comparatively  simple 
task,  when  it  was  left  to  the  stewardship 
of  the  Church. 

The  Church  confided  in  the  presence  and 
power  of  the  Spirit  to  guide  them  into  all 
truth;  but  understood,  as  well,  that  in 
matters  of  fact  they  must  use  their  own 
faculties  and  proceed  by  rules  of  evidence 
known  and  read  of  all  men.  The  chief 
difficulties  were  two:  (i)  the  existence  of 
books,  or  writings,  some  edifying  and 
others  grossly  fraudulent,  which  were  im- 
agined, by  some,  to  be  Scriptures,  or  at 
least  quasi  Scriptures;  and  (2)  the  fact 
that  for  local  and  particular  purposes  a 
measure  of  the  Spirit  had  been  poured  out 
upon    private    "young    men    and    hand- 


200  HOLY    WRIT 

maidens,"  and  might  possibly  have  fur- 
nished a  foundation  for  such  claims  of 
quasi  Scriptural  value.  But  the  rule  was 
clear,  (i)  that  only  the  apostles,  and  persons 
by  them  accredited,  were  teachers  of  the 
whole  Church;  and  (2)  that  only  such 
writings  as  could  be  identified  as  apostolic, 
by  having  been  read  and  handed  down  as 
such  in  churches  founded  by  the  apostles, 
were  Holy  Scriptures.  By  this  rule  the 
Church  "  tried  the  spirits  "  of  all  claimants, 
and  as  a  ''  discerner  of  spirits,"  '"  took  forth 
the  precious  from  the  vile,"  and  thus  be- 
came as  ''  the  mouth  "  of  the  Lord  Himself, 
speaking  with  authority.  "  He  that  hath 
ears  to  hear  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit 
saith  unto  the  churches." 

But,  it  is  objected,  the  Canon  was  formed 
gradually,  not  without  delays  of  judgment, 
and  while  "  some  doubted,"  as  in  the  case 
of  the  resurrection  itself.  Yes ;  and  as  in 
that  case  the  honest  doubts  and  avowed 
hesitation  of  St.  Thomas  and  others  worked 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  201 

for  "  the  greater  confirmation  of  the  faith," 
and  proved  the  faith  itself  a  different  thing 
from  superstition  and  creduHty,  so,  by  the 
sifting  of  evidence  and  the  hearing  of  wit- 
nesses, kept  up  through  times  of  perpetual 
persecutions,  the  sacred  canon  was  verified 
and  settled  beyond  all  peradventure. 

What  then  would  you  prefer  to  this 
sober  process  by  testimony  and  evidence  ? 
Should  it  be  golden  plates  dug  up  out  of 
the  earth,  and  read  by  a  miraculous  crys- 
tal? That  was  a  "modern  thought" 
indeed,  and  has  suited  thousands  in  our 
times,  but  it  may  be  left  to  the  Mormons 
to  defend  it.  Or,  should  each  writing 
have  come  to  us  accredited  by  the  testi- 
mony only  of  its  author,  as  having  been 
approved  by  a  miracle  from  heaven  ?  We 
leave  that  to  the  earliest  evangelist  of 
**  modern  thought,"  Lord  Herbert  of 
Cherbury.  Or  finally,  should  the  whole 
question  have  been  referred  to  the  wit  of 
M.  Renan    and    others  of   the    nineteenth 


202  HOLY    WRIT 

century,  who  fancy  themselves  better  quali- 
fied and  better  situated  for  exercising  judg- 
ment, than  the  Fathers  of  the  sub-apostolic 
age  ?  This  seems  to  be  the  pet  idea  of  the 
Great  Unknown  who  wrote  on  **  Super- 
natural Religion;"  but  even  he  does  not 
point  out  how  soon  these  great  scholars, 
including  himself,  may  be  expected  to 
come  to  an  agreement.  They  have  been 
sifting  and  cutting  and  carping  from  the 
days  of  the  learned  Bahrdt  until  now ;  and 
lo!  the  twentieth  century  will  be  upon  us 
before  any  two  of  the  *' higher  critics" 
are  likely  to  reach  an  agreement.  A  dime 
stih  jiidice  lis  est. 

Let  us  then  heartily  praise  God  that  His 
Church  did  not  leave  ''the  lively  oracles" 
to  be  collected  by  men  *'  having  not  the 
Spirit,"  and  according  to  the  caprices  of 
such  men  well-nigh  two  thousand  years 
too  late  for  the  accumulation  of  competent 
testimony. 

Tertullian,    himself    a    jurist    expert    in 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  203 

Roman  law,  tells  us  how  carefully  the  evi- 
dence was  collected ;  and  how  a  result  was 
reached  satisfactory  to  all  candid  men,  and 
such  as  from  the  beginning,  everywhere^ 
and  by  all  the  cJmrcJies,  was  accepted,  at 
the  earliest  possible  date.  One  cannot  but 
be  amazed  at  the  patient  energy  which, 
amid  raging  fires  of  persecution,  pursued 
and  accomplished  this  work;  nor  should 
we  forget  how  God  overruled  the  persecu- 
tions themselves  to  consume  the  dross  and 
to  bring  forth  the  gold  of  His  Word  *'  seven 
times  tried  with  fire."  For  the  persecutors 
very  soon  discovered  that  the  Church  had 
holy  books,  and  they  became  witnesses  to 
this  fact  by  making  inquisition  for  them, 
burning  and  destroying  all  they  could 
gather.  At  the  same  time,  the  Church  itself 
was  made  to  discriminate  the  more  strictly. 
Every  Christian  was  anxious  to  understand 
what  books  he  might  surrender  and  what 
he  must  hold  dearer  than  life  itself.  The 
blood  of  the  martyrs  thus  sealed  their  testi- 


204  HOLY    WRIT 

mony  to  the  writings  of  apostles  and  evan- 
gelists. The  supreme  court  of  primitive 
Christendom  tried  the  case  in  the  times 
when  evidence  was  abundant,  and  was  vir- 
tually that  contemporary  evidence  which 
jurists  pronounce  {fortissimo)  the  most 
invincible.  Thus,  from  this  tribunal,  the 
only  competent  court  of  record,  our  Bible 
comes  to  us  an  adjudged  case,  never  to  be 
opened  again,  because  in  the  nature  of 
things  it  cannot  be;  and  because  among 
the  books  that  men  accept  from  antiquity, 
this  comes  to  us  accredited  by  a  hundred 
testimonies  to  one,  if  compared  with  all  the 
rest. 

And  to  this  we  are  firmly  bound,  more- 
over, by  the  test  of  its  history  since  the 
apostolic  age ;  a  legitimate  supplementary 
argument.  How  does  it  stand?  But  for 
this  Bible,  where  would  have  been  the 
wiseacres  who  rail  and  write  against  it? 
Themselves,  at  best,  idolaters  with  Socra- 
tes, or  grosser  pagans,  like  the  persecuting 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  205 

Antonines  or  the  apostate  Julian.  More 
probably,  not  by  any  means  so  good,  but 
barbarians  and  savages  to  this  day.  Try 
this  test.  What  has  been  the  influence  of 
the  Bible  in  proportion  as  it  has  been  known 
and  loved,  upon  the  individual,  the  state, 
the  world?  Just  in  proportion  as  it  has 
been  made  to  penetrate  their  intellectual  and 
moral  life,  what  has  been  the  result  ?  To 
ask  the  question  is  to  answer  it.  Behold 
the  leaven  which  the  Church  has  ''  hid  in 
three  measures  of  meal,"  the  three  famiHes 
of  the  world ;  and  behold  the  process  still 
going  on  till  the  whole  shall  be  leavened. 
And  if  you  would  recognize  the  true 
Church,  and  its  true  ministers,  take  another 
parable — a  parable  of  fact :  We  recognize 
the  yearning  bowels  of  the  true  mother, 
not  in  one  who  would  give  over  this  Bible 
to  the  knife,  but  in  the  voice  which  cries 
out,  ''  In  no  wise  slay  it." 

Pitiable   indeed   is  the   position  of  any 
professional    teacher    of    Christianity,    to 


206  HOLY    WRIT 

whom  his  Bible  is  of  problematical  value ; 
who  knows  nothing  of  a  living  Church ^ 
which  gives  him  an  accredited  Bible  as  the 
'*  sure  word  of  prophecy  "  which  ''  cannot 
be  broken,"  and  which  he  possesses  as  the 
Word  of  God,  able  to  make  both  him  and 
his  hearers  "wise  unto  salvation."  The 
preacher,  not  merely  a  professional  adven- 
turer, but  one  who  comes  with  a  commis- 
sion, who  believes  in  the  Book  from  which 
he  takes  his  text,  and  with  all  his  heart  and 
life  commends  it  to  his  hearers,  as  St.  Paul 
and  all  the  shining  lights  of  Christendom 
have  presented  it  since  the  era  of  light  was 
begun — such  a  teacher  cannot  but  inspire 
respect.  But,  what  is  he  but  '*  sounding 
brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal "  who  appears 
before  his  auditors  in  this  last  decade  be- 
fore the  twentieth  century  of  Illumination, 
to  assure  them  that  this  sacred  library  is 
yet  a  book  of  scattered  leaves,  alike  in 
matter  and  in  measure,   unsettled,   unde- 

1  Like  bewildered  Menken.     See  p.  140,  supra. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  207 

fined,  and  only  to  be  accepted  as  he  under- 
takes to  determine  or  as  the  interminable 
confusions  of  "  modern  thought "  may  be 
gradually  sifted  and  the  result  accredited 
by  himself  and  by  others  not  less  infallible. 
The  world  cannot  listen  to  such  men  as 
Bahrdt  and  Nicolai,  without  again  running 
down  to  "  pessimism,"  which  in  its  ultimate 
forms  means  not  that  of  poor  Schopen- 
hauer, but  the  more  practical  pessimism  of 
Danton  and  Robespierre,  with  a  reign  of 
terror  at  the  end.  Society  itself  is  doomed 
to  perish  in  strikes  and  insurrections  and 
anarchy,  if  we  take  for  leaders  men  who, 
owing  their  culture  to  the  Bible  and  to 
Christian  schools,  use  it  to  rob  the  multi- 
tude of  all  that  gives  power  to  conscience, 
restrains  their  passions,  and  comforts  them 
in  their  sorrows.  Take  the  recent  example 
of  one  who,  kindly  welcomed  by  Americans 
to  their  hajls  and  homes,  repays  us  by 
scorning  our  most  precious  treasures,  our 
holiest  instincts,  and  our  hereditary  Faith. 


208  HOLY    WRIT 

He  goes  to  utmost  California  before  he 
casts  off  the  restraints  of  decorum  and  tells 
us  what  he  is.  He  climbs  Mt.  Hamilton  to 
behold  the  heavens  through  the  great  eye 
of  the  Lick  Observatory ;  and  this  inspires 
him  with  little  else  than  a  paroxysm  of 
railing  against  Christianity,  which  he  seems 
to  imagine  was  the  author  of  the  ancient 
astronomy.  He  mocks  at  the  "  old  Chris- 
tianity "  ;  but  pray  what  *'  Christianity  "  is 
not  old?  How  can  Christ's  work  be  mod- 
ern ?  Alas !  in  the  "  Modern  Thought "  of 
this  lecturer  there  is  no  "  Christianity " 
left,  as  I  proceed  to  show. 

It  has  been  the  glory  of  the  Church,  as  of 
the  people,  of  England  from  remote  antiq- 
uity, that  in  honouring  the  Dominical  Sab- 
bath and  God's  Holy  Word,  they  were  even 
singular  among  Western  churches.  **  Thou 
hast  kept  my  Word  and  hast  not  denied  my 
name."  That  message  of  the  Master  to  an 
early  bishop  seems  to  have  been  her  hon- 
our in  very  dark  days,  and  the  consequent 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  20g 

blessing  has  not  been  denied  her.  Her 
Bible  is  no  "  Protestant  Bible,"  as  her  ene- 
mies do  vainly  boast.  It  comes  to  us  from 
kings  and  priests,  a  growth  and  not  a  crea- 
tion ;  always  "  with  former  versions  dili- 
gently compared  and  revised."  And  her 
laity,  from  Alfred  down  to  ''  Old  John  of 
Gaunt — time-honoured  Lancaster,"  have 
ever  been  its  defenders  and  its  lovers.  I  am 
sorry  that  times  have  changed,  and  that 
now  some  who  call  themselves  Englishmen 
fail  to  see  that  the  sun  will  set  on  the  do- 
minions of  their  sovereign  if  ever  the  sun- 
shine of  the  Scriptures  shall  be  dimmed  or 
withdrawn.  I  am  sorry  that  such  English- 
men sometimes  visit  us ;  and  that  sons  of 
her  universities  and  heirs  of  her  scholar- 
ship, from  whom  we  might  expect  contri- 
butions to  our  stability,  bring  us,  rather, 
solvents  and  corrosives ;  as  if  we  had  not 
enough  of  that  already ;  as  if  our  republic 
were  not  threatened  by  immigrant  anarchy 
of  the  most  ignoble  sort,  and  as  if  England 


2IO  HOLY    WRIT 

had  a  mission  not  to  correct  it  by  her  sober 
thought,  but  rather  to  kindle  and  inflame 
it,  adding  fuel  to  fire.  In  concluding  what 
I  have  to  say  of  Holy  Writ,  as  still  very 
precious  to  our  countrymen,  I  must  illus- 
trate my  reflections  upon  English  intrusion 
and  aggression  of  this  sort,  by  what  I  have 
said  of  Germany,  under  the  popular  in- 
fluences of  mountebanks  who  debauch  the 
popular  mind.  Renan,  with  his  subtilities 
and  refinements,  has  hardly  been  felt  by 
the  masses ;  but  when  an  itinerant  lecturer 
of  repute  comes  from  England  to  translate 
and  to  transfuse  him,  he  scatters  among  us 
"  firebrands,  arrows,  and  death."  For  ex- 
ample, Renan  had  spoken — with  little  credit 
to  his  candour,  for  he  knows  better — of  *'  the 
rage  of  the  Church  against  Copernicus, 
Giordano  Bruno,  and  Galileo."  But  when 
an  English  disciple  of  his,  accepting  all  this 
no  doubt  for  true,  comes  to  America  and 
gives  us  Renan  at  second-hand,  but  with 
his  own  intensified  and  (I  must  add)  tL7ire- 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  211 

fined  additions,  the  populace  swallow  it, 
of  course ;  especially  when  dealt  to  them 
broadcast  in  the  columns  of  a  journal  that 
goes  everywhere.^  Let  us  see  Renan  in 
English,  with  the  benefit  of  such  a  scholiast. 
He  says : 

"  The  general  mind,  perhaps,  hardly 
realizes,  even  at  this  day,  what  a  tre- 
mendous blow  was  dealt  at  human  self- 
conceit  and  to  the  Ptolemaic  rehgions 
founded  to  suit  it  by  the  discovery  of  Gali- 
leo. Well  might  the  priests  of  the  old  or- 
thodoxies stand  aghast  at  him,  and  even  go 
so  dreadfully  far  as  to  burn  the  gentle  and 
wise  Giordano  Bruno!  At  a  stroke  the 
Florentine  astronomer's  ejaculation,  'E ptcr 
si  miiove  !  '  swept  away  all  the  theology  of 
Dante  and  his  sacerdotal  doctors,  made  the 
cosmology  of  the  '  Divine  Comedy '  im- 
possible and  grotesque,  and  dethroned  the 
race  and  the  planet." 

Now  Renan  knew  very  well,  what  his 
scholiast  apparently  does  not,  (i)  that  the 
Roman    Inquisition    is    not    the    Christian 

^  Letter  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold.  See  the  Herald  of 
April  24,  1892. 


212  HOLY    WRIT 

Church,  nor  are  the  Jesuits  '*  priests  of  the 
old  ortlwdoxiesy  (2)  He  knew  that  Gior- 
dano Bruno  was  not  burned  for  his  science, 
but  for  his  Lutheranism,  which  he  vented 
in  a  manner  neither  ''  gentle  nor  wise."  He 
was  a  splendid  satirist  and  a  *'  good  hater," 
though  nothing  can  justify  his  tormentors 
in  their  cruelty.  They  dreaded  his  heresy 
far  more  than  they  hated  his  philosophy ; 
for  (3)  Galileo  was  somewhat  indulgently 
treated,  while  a  Lutheran  was  fuel  for 
flames,  as  a  matter  of  course.  All  this  our 
scholiast  might  have  learned  from  that  or- 
nament of  his  own  university,  the  late  Dr. 
Whewell,  whose  calm  and  judicial  survey 
of  the  whole  subject  proves,  like  Light- 
foot's  work  in  another  department,  how 
cool  and  how  just  an  ecclesiastic  can  be, 
while  laymen  seem  ready  to  renew  burn- 
ing and  torturing,  as  bigots  of  *'  modern 
thought"  and  "  higher  criticism."  But  let 
me  recur  to  our  scholiast.  He  says: 
*'  Old-fashioned    Christianity   had    taught 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  213 

that  our  world  was  the  centre  of  things, 
round  which  the  sun  revolved,  for  the  sake 
of  which  the  stars  were  hung  up  like  Japa- 
nese lanterns  in  the  firmament,  and  in 
direct  relation  to  which  all  the  forces  of  in- 
finite space  were  established." 

But  all  this  our  scholiast  reminds  us  was 
''exploded  by  Copernicus  and  Galileo." 
Why  does  he  not  put  it  into  the  form  of 
truth  and  justice  by  adding,  '*  Yes,  by 
Galileo,  who  was  a  Christian,  and  by  Co- 
pernicus, who  was  a  Christian  priest''  ? 
And  now,  let  me  remind  him  that  neither 
"  old  Christianity  "  nor  *'  modern  Christian- 
ity "  has  ever  taught  anything  of  the  kind ; 
for  in  all  its  teaching  on  such  subjects,  it 
has  simply  reflected  what  science  claimed  to 
have  demonstrated ;  what  wsiS  forced  tipon 
it  as  such.  It  was  not  the  Church,  cer- 
tainly, that  overruled  the  true  theory  in 
the  times  of  Pythagoras  or  Plato.  Not 
she  defined  the  counter-theories  main- 
tained  by   Aristotle   three  hundred  years 


214  HOLY    WRIT 

before  the  Incarnation.  When  Hipparchus 
consolidated  these  counter-theories,  and 
with  brilliant  reasoning  sustained  and  com- 
pleted them  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
before  Christ's  birth,  it  was  not  ''  old-fash- 
ioned Christianity,"  surely,  that  made  the 
earth  the  centre,  and  hung  up  the  "  Japa- 
nese lanterns."  If  so,  certainly  neither 
miracle  nor  prophecy  is  impossible.  And 
when,  in  the  second  century,  and  under  the 
scientific  Antonines,  Christianity  was  writh- 
ing, like  Laocoon  and  his  sons,  in  the  envi- 
ronment of  cruel  persecutions  (her  only 
philosopher,  Justin  Martyr,  being  fully  oc- 
cupied with  his  appeals  to  the  emperors  to 
desist  from  their  philosophic  bigotry  and 
inquisition),  was  Ptolemy,  the  final  editor 
and  asserter  of  the  Hipparchian  system,  a 
Christian  ?  Was  he  a  priest  of  our  relig- 
ion? He  was  an  adherent  of  the  Anto- 
nines, and  for  his  day  a  brilliant  scientist ;  so 
brilliant,  that  his  system — which  the  scho- 
liast asserts  '*  priests  constructed  " — main- 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  21 5 

tained  Itself  for  thirteen  centuries  more. 
Indeed,  it  died  so  hard  that  scientists  of 
the  greatest  eminence  kept  it  up  for  a  cent- 
ury longer,  after  the  priest  Copernicus  had 
exploded  it,  and  Galileo,  a  Christian,  strove 
in  vain  to  finish  it  by  *'  a  stroke  "  and  by  his 
ejaculation  ^^ E pur  si  muove'^  Where  did 
this  Cambridge  scholiast  learn  his  history 
of  the  sciences  ?  Surely  not  of  Whewell. 
No,  nor  of  Rawlinson.^  But  even  Professor 
Driver  and  Archdeacon  Farrar,  who  eat 
the  Church's  bread,  but  dilute  the  truths 
they  have  sworn  to  defend,  are  not  "  bold  " 
enough  for  him.  Let  us  hear  him  complain 
again,  not  now  of  "  old  Christianity,"  but  of 
"  higher  criticism  "  and  "  modern  thought," 
of  whose  hierophants  he  says : 

"  The  boldest  and  truest,  even,  have  not 
yet  come  into  step  with  *  star- eyed  science.' 
These  ancient,  mediaeval,  and  so-called 
orthodox  absurdities  of  a  local  *  hell '  and 
*  heaven,'  and  Joshua's  miracle,  and  of  Heze- 

'  See  his  "  Herodotus,"  Book  H.,  cap.  7,  p.  277  of 
vol.  ii.     Ed.  New  York,  1859. 


2l6  HOLY    WRIT 

kiah's  reprieve  linger  still,  like  our  popular 
expressions  of  'sunrise'  and  'sunset,'  and 
the  belief  in  the  Mosaic  cosmogony.  Chris- 
tianity itself  has  not  yet  sufficiently  assimi- 
lated Copernican  and  Darwinian  doctrines. 
When  it  does  it  will  earnestly  thank  science 
for  showing  how  much  more  glorious  it  is  to 
be  *  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven '  than 
greatest  in  that  petty  sub-kingdom  of 
nature  which  the  priests  constructed,  and  of 
how  much  nobler  promise  to  be  a  descend- 
ant of  a  mollusk  and  afterward  of  an  ape, 
with  all  the  heights  of  creation  to  ascend  to, 
than  a  creature  suddenly  made  out  of  clay 
to  occupy  a  garden." 

So,  then,  all  who  stop  short  of  blas- 
phemy like  this  are  ''behind  the  age." 
This  scholiast  has  swept  away  Christianity 
with  a  flourish  of  his  pen,  surpassing  Gali- 
leo himself.  He  is  the  author  of  a  new 
creed,  which  rests  on  his  own  uninspired 
thought  and  the  assurance  /  tJiink,  a  sub- 
situte  for  the  Christian's  we  believe.  And 
here,  in  few  words,  is  the  new  creed  of  the 
new   religion : 

"Astronomy,  I  positively  indeed  think, 
is  the  chief  present  hope  of  humanity,  the 


AND   MODERN   THOUGHT.  217 

best  teacher  of  real  and  practical  religion, 
which  will  redeem  men  from  the  folly  of 
materialism  by  showing  matter  as  infinite 
and  as  spiritual  as  spirit  itself." 

Surely  in  this  Creed  we  must  recognize 
the  human  element  as  superior  to  the  Di- 
vine, if  we  respond  Amen. 

But  such  is  not  the  astronomy  of  Co- 
pernicus, that  exploded  the  *'  star-eyed 
science  "  of  ages ;  it  is  the  succedanetim  for 
Divine  revelation,  to  be  taken  on  one  man's 
word  of  honour,  I  think;  nay,  on  his  sol- 
emn affirmation,  "  I  positively  indeed  Xhmk.'* 
After  this,  from  one  who  has  glorified  Bud- 
dha, and  received  from  his  sovereign  the 
*'  Star  of  India,"  and  from  the  King  of  Siam 
the  decoration  of  the  "White  Elephant," 
what  room  is  there  for  doubt?  On  this  as- 
surance he  expects  us  to  forsake  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem  and  to  go  back  to  the  East  for 
the  ''  Light  of  Asia,"  reversing  the  course 
of  the  wise  men  who  came  from  the  East 
to  behold  "  the  Light  of  the  World."    It  is 


2l8  HOLY    WRIT 

amusing  to  follow  him  in  prescribing  a  pil- 
grimage to  the  Lick  Observatory  on  Mt. 
Hamilton,  in  California — *'  from  the  pretty, 
half-Spanish  town  of  San  Jose,  not  farther 
than  thirteen  miles,  as  the  crowjlies.''  Here, 
then,  is  the  Mecca  of  the  new  religion  of 
which  he  is  the  evangelist,  and  of  which  he 
is  persuaded  "positively  indeed."  What 
comfort  for  the  savages  in  darkest  Africa ! 
Such  is  the  illumination  they  require.  They 
have  only  to  look  through  a  telescope,  and 
consult  Kepler's  Laws,  Newton's  "  Prin- 
cipia,"  or  the  *'  Mecanique  Celeste  "  of  La- 
place, to  be  made  **  wise  unto  salvation." 
And  what  satisfaction  it  must  bring  to  the 
cottager  and  peasant  in  his  own  Christian 
England!  No  more  Bible  and  Prayer- 
book  ;  no  more  Easter  and  Christmas :  the 
Lick  Observatory  has  superseded  the  cross 
of  Christ,  and  Mt.  Hamilton  eclipses  Cal- 
vary. Oh,  bleeding  Lamb  of  God!  this 
from  one  baptized  into  Thy  blessed  Name ; 
from  one  who  has  heard  from  infancy  the 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  219 

Story  of  the  Passion;  who  has  read  the 
prophecy  of  Isaiah  and  compared  it  with 
what  Pontius  Pilate  said  of  Jesus ;  and  *'  be- 
fore whose  eyes  "  the  Evangelist  has  set  the 
Saviour  of  mankind  in  the  incomparable  por- 
traiture :  "  Then  came  Jesus  forth  wearing 
the  crown  of  thorns  and  the  purple  robe." 
The  history  of  astronomical  science  has 
always  seemed  to  me  one  of  the  strongest 
proofs  of  the  wisdom  of  God,  in  relegating 
science  to  philosophers,  and  leaving  to  them 
what  He  had  made  them  able  to  do  for 
themselves.  For,  in  the  first  place,  had 
Moses  talked  like  Pythagoras,  we  see  from 
the  history  of  this  sage  of  science  that  it 
would  not  have  been  accepted  by  scientific 
men,  and  would  have  hindered  the  far  more 
important  work  which  Moses  was  sent  to  ac- 
complish, and  by  which  human  knowledge 
itself  has  been  enlarged.  The  Pentateuch 
would  have  been  a  scandal  to  Hebrews, 
greater  than  all  that  provoked  their  unbe- 
lief in  Revelation,  even  when  it  condemned 


220  HOLY   WRIT 

their  "  hardness  of  heart " ;  and  Gentiles 
would  have  mocked  at  their  credulity,  as 
vastly  greater  than  their  own,  in  accepting 
what  their  eyes  contradicted  every  day. 
When,  besides  this  *'  hidden  wisdom,"  one 
finds  so  much  cryptic  philosophy  in  the  si- 
lence of  Scripture  ;  such  eloquence  in  what 
it  does  not  say ;  such  forethought  in  what 
it  so  says  as  to  harmonize  with  true  science ; 
when  at  last  men  should  discover  the  as- 
tounding contrivance  of  God,  the  glory  of 
His  invention,  and  His  prescience  as  the 
Author  of  all  creation — who  can  hesitate 
to  see  in  all  this  the  infinite  knowledge  and 
wisdom  which  accounts  for  it  all?  And 
when  one  compares  the  Scriptures,  written 
by  so  many  men,  by  men  so  different  in 
attainment  and  capacity,  and  separated  by 
such  vast  intervals  of  time,  how  wonderful 
it  is  that  the  Old  Testament  is  nowhere 
committed  to  the  grotesque  systems  of  the 
Hindus,  nor  the  New  to  the  scientific  theo- 
ries which  were  solidified  by  Hipparchus ! 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  22  1 

And  here  let  me  recur  to  the  pains  taken 
by  that  unknown  sage  whose  relations  to 
Lightfoot  are  far  more  ignoble  than  those 
of  Ptolemy  to  Copernicus.  I  must  thank 
him  for  furnishing  an  argument  for  Revela- 
tion which  all  good  men  have  felt,  but 
which  good  men  have  had  no  taste  to  illus- 
trate by  details. 

The  jackal  and  the  hyaena  exult  in  prey- 
ing upon  the  decay  and  putridity  of  bodies 
which  may  once  have  been  beautiful  in 
womanhood,  or  majestic  as  the  framework 
of  the  soul  in  noble  men.  And  so  this  un- 
known and  exhaustive  author  has  indeed 
exhausted  time  and  a  persevering  faculty 
for  scientific  filth  or  foibles,  gathering  and 
showing  up  the  infirmities  of  Christian 
Fathers,  to  whose  preponderating  grandeur 
of  intelligence  he  owes  it  that  he  himself  is 
not  as  ignorant  as  they  were ;  taking,  as 
they  did,  the  scientists  of  their  age  for  mas- 
ters, but  teaching  those  better  things  which 
the  world   by    wisdom   could    not    know. 


222  HOLY    WRIT 

And  while  he  works  with  relish  at  this 
fact,  that  the  very  best  and  some  of  the 
wisest  of  men  fell  into  such  absurdities  and 
marvellous  scientific  mistakes  while  they 
trusted  their  own  senses  or  the  science  of 
their  contemporaries,  he  never  seems  to  see 
the  fact  that  nothing  of  the  kind  is  found 
in  Holy  Scripture,  and  that  this  goes  far  to 
prove  that  its  authors  wrote  indeed  '*  as 
they  were  moved  "  by  the  Spirit  of  Wis- 
dom ;  even  when  they  used  the  idioms  of 
the  unlearned  and  yet  shunned  the  splendid 
ignorance  of  philosophers,  whose  theories 
could  captivate  Aristotle  and  overcome  the 
science  of  Plato  and  of  Tully. 

If  itinerant  lecturers  from  abroad  lose 
their  self-respect  when  they  come  among 
us  so  far  as  to  insult  our  American  rever- 
ence for  the  Common  English  Bible  and 
the  Common  Prayer  of  our  forefathers,  let 
them  reflect  that  from  Mother  England  we 
inherit  also  the  Common  Law,  and  that 
through  it  we  derive  our  social  fabric  and 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  223 

the  noble  inheritance  of  our  free  constitu- 
tion. Let  them  at  least  show  some  respect 
for  the  law  of  the  land,  which  I  must  now 
commend  to  your  hearts  and  minds  as 
giving  honour  to  Holy  Writ  and  defining 
our  civilization  as  distinctively  Christian.  If 
there  be  any  name  among  our  eminent  jur- 
ists more  honoured  than  the  rest,  perhaps 
I  may  justly  claim  that  distinction  for  one 
whose  commentaries  are  quoted  in  courts 
of  justice  wherever  the  English  language  is 
spoken.  Where  the  Northern  Crown  shines 
in  the  night-watches  over  England  and 
America,  it.  reminds  us  of  Bunyan's  angel 
holding  such  a  crown  over  the  sordid  soul 
with  his  muck-rake,  and  appealing  to  his 
conscience  to  *'  set  his  affections  on  things 
above";  and  where  the  Southern  Cross 
meets  the  gaze  of  the  Australians,  it 
teaches  them  the  Christian  astronomy 
"  which  declares  the  glory  of  God  "  in  the 
firmament  that  "  showeth  His  handiwork." 
Alike  near  Arctic  and  Antarctic  poles,  and 


224  HOLY    WRIT 

all  around  the  globe,  the  Common  Law  sus- 
tains the  Christian  civilization  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  family ;  and  wherever  such  law  is 
recognized,  there  our  Chancellor  Kent  is 
known  as  an  authority  and  is  quoted  as 
we  quote  Blackstone.  Hear,  then,  his  clear 
statements,  delivered  from  the  bench  sev- 
enty years  ago ;  and  reflect  that  the  law  as 
he  lays  it  down  has  been  over  and  over 
again  affirmed  anew,  in  the  revised  consti- 
tutions and  statutes  of  the  State  of  New 
York. 

Seventy  years  ago,  in  defence  of  laws 
which  since  then,  I  say,  have  been  over 
and  over  again  re-enacted,^  he  thus  ruled: 

"The  act  concerning  oaths  recognizes 
the  Common  Law  mode  of  administering 
an  oath — by  laying  the  hand  on  and  kiss- 
ing the  Gospels.  Surely,  then,  we  are 
bound  to  conclude  that  wicked  and  mali- 
cious words,  writings,  and  actions,  which 
go  to  vilify  those  Gospels,  continue— ras  at 
Common  Law — to  be  an  offence  against 
the  public  peace  and  safety.     They  are  in- 

1  See  Note  XXIV. 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  22$ 

consistent  with  the  reverence  due  to  the 
administration  of  an  oath,  and  among  their 
other  evil  consequences  they  tend  to  les- 
sen, in  the  public  mind,  its  religious  sanc- 
tion." 

It  had  been  argued  that  by  the  Common 
Law  ''  Christianity  is  parcel  of  the  law  of 
the  land,  and  that  to  cast  contumelious're- 
proaches  upon  it  tends  to  weaken  the  foun- 
dation of  moral  obligation  and  the  efficiency 
of  oaths."  But  to  this  the  counsel  for  the 
offender  objected  that — ''as  here  we  have 
no  established  religion,  the  Bible  is  no 
more  protected  by  law  than  the  Creed  of 
Thibet  or  that  of  the  Koran."  This  soph- 
ism was  soon  disposed  of  by  the  court.  It 
was  ruled  as  follows : 

''  Authorities  show  that  blasphemy 
against  God  and  profane  ridicule  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  are  offences  punishable  at 
Common  Law.  Such  offences  have  always 
been  considered  independent  of  any  es- 
tablishment or  the  rights  of  the  Church. 
They  are  treated  as  ajfccting  the  essential 
interests  of  civil  society.  .  .  .  The  very 
idea  of  jurisprudence,  with  the  ancient  law- 


226  HOLY    WRIT 

givers  and  philosophers,  embraced  the  re- 
ligion of  the  country.  .  .  .  The  free,  equal, 
and  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  religious 
opinion,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  granted 
and  assured  by  the  Constitution  of  this 
State.  But  to  revile  with  blasphemous 
contempt  the  religion  professed  by  almost 
the  whole  comimuiity  is  an  offence  against 
that  right.  .  .  .  Nor  are  we  bound  by  any 
expressions  in  the  Constitution,  either  not 
to  punish  at  all,  or  to  punish  indiscrimi- 
nately, like  assaults  on  the  religion  of 
Mahomet,  or  the  Grand  Lama;  and  for 
this  reason,  that  the  case  shows  we  are  a 
Christian  people;  tJie  morality  of  the  coun- 
try is  deeply  ingrafted  upon  Christianity ^ 

It  seems,  then,  that  we  have  sacred 
institutions  which  one  who  accepts  our 
hospitalities  is  bound  to  respect.  Dog- 
matic theology  is,  indeed,  credited  by  our 
Constitution  with  the  privilege  of  taking 
care  of  itself ;  but  over  and  over  again  has 
it  been  ruled  by  our  courts,  that  the  civil- 
ization of  our  republic  is  a  Christian  civil- 
ization ;  that  our  social  fabric  rests  on  the 
Law  of  Moses  as  transformed  by  the  New 
Testament,  and  wrought  into  the  enlight- 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  22 7 

ened   conscience   of   Christian    nations    by 
ages  of  experience. 

But  to  dispossess  Americans  of  these 
recognized  axioms  of  jurisprudence  is  not 
only  to  revolutionize  us,  but  to  subject  us 
to  chronic  revolutions  like  those  of  Mexico 
and  South  America,  where  republics  that 
have  not  the  Bible  are  our  sufficient  warn- 
ing, if  we  are  not  unwise.  I  know  my 
duty  as  a  Christian  bishop  in  speaking  to 
the  youth  of  a  Christian  university,  and 
through  them  to  my  native  land.  I  have 
spoken,  heretofore,  not  wholly  in  vain,  to 
my  countrymen,  in  behalf  of  our  ''  Com- 
mon English  Bible,"  ^  and  now  let  me  con- 
clude by  quoting  again,  as  I  did  five-and- 
thirty  years  ago,  the  memorable  words  of 
an  English  pervert,  who  could  not  forget 
the  blessed  Word  *'  which  his  mother 
taught  him,"  though  he  had  left  the 
Church,  his  true  mother,  and  sat  down  **  by 

'  "Apology  for  the  Common  English  Bible,"  p.  74. 
Third  edition,  Baltimore  and  New  York,  1857. 


228  HOLY    WRIT 

the  rivers  of  Babylon  to  weep  when  he 
remembered  Zion."  That  Bible,  the  prod- 
uct of  ages,  of  saints  and  scholars,  and  of 
devout  princes,  was  once  his  own.  He- 
could  not  forget  that  it  is  the  corner-stone 
of  English  literature,  the  chief  standard  of 
our  language,  the  purest  "  well  of  English 
undefiled  "  ;  nor  had  he  lost  the  faculty  to 
appreciate  its  place  in  the  moral  and  relig- 
ious life  of  a  great  nation.  Thank  God, 
his  **  right  hand  had  not  forgotten  its  cun- 
ning," nor  did  his  tongue  "cleave  to  the 
roof  of  his  mouth  "  when  he  could  utter 
words  like  these : 

"  It  Hves  in  the  ear  like  music  that  can 
never  be  forgotten,  like  the  sound  of  the 
church-bell  which  the  convert  hardly  knows 
how  he  can  forego.  Its  felicities  often 
seem  to  be  almost  tilings  rather  than  mere 
words.  It  is  part  of  the  national  mind  and 
the  anchor  of  national  seriousness.  The 
memory  of  the  dead  passes  into  it.  The 
potent  traditions  of  childhood  are  stereo- 
typed in  its  verses.  The  power  of  all  the 
gifts  and  trials  of  a  man  is  hidden  beneath 
its  words.      It  is  the  representative  of  his 


AND    MODERN   THOUGHT.  229 

best  moments ;  and  all  that  there  has  been 
about  him  of  soft  and  gentle  and  pure  and 
penitent  and  good  speaks  to  him  forever 
out  of  the  English  Bible.  It  is  his  sacred 
thing  which  doubt  has  never  dimmed  and 
controversy  never  soiled.  In  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land,  there  is  not  a 
Protestant  with  one  spark  of  righteousness 
about  him  whose  spiritual  biography  is 
not  in  his  Saxon  Bible." 

Here  are  siispiria  de proftindis  indeed; 
but  I  adopt  them  as  worthy  to  be  followed 
by  a  GlojHa  in  Excelsis.  Not  till  Latin 
Christendom  is  blest,  in  every  nation,  with 
its  Bible  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  of  which 
something  similar  may  be  said,  can  the 
Latin  churches  regain  Catholicity.  The 
first  bishop  of  Rome  was  able  to  say  to  his 
fellow- Christians  of  the  East :  *'  Ye  under- 
stand, beloved,  ye  well  understand  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  have  looked  very 
earnestly  into  the  oracles  of  God."  To 
what  Church  in  all  his  communion  can  the 
Roman  patriarch  now  address  these  words  ? 
St.  Clement  might  go  on  and  quote  to  his 


230  HOLY    WRIT 

successor  the  text  ^  which  he  applied  to 
others  in  his  day :  "  I  held  forth  my 
words,  and  ye  regarded  not ;  I  called,  and 
ye  did  not  hear."  But  these  words  are 
our  Bible;  and  if,  as  a  mere  man  of  the 
world,  I  could  appreciate,  in  its  force  of 
truth  as  well  as  in  that  of  its  beauty,  the 
eulogy  I  have  quoted,  I  should  be  con- 
strained to  say.  What  can  a  nation  possess, 
what  can  science  give,  what  can  astronomy 
supply  to  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men,  to 
be  compared  with  such  a  Bible?  Until 
bereft  of  conscience,  I  should  be  forced  to 
rest  happy  in  the  conviction  that  nobody 
can  be  justified  in  disturbing  any  people 
reposing  in  the  sweet  assurance  that  such 
a  Bible  is  Eternal  Truth.  Let  them  alone, 
I  should  say,  in  the  enjoyment  of  convic- 
tions so  innocent  and  so  sweet.  What 
other  safeguard  can  I  furnish,  if  this  be 
withdrawn,  to  the  inexperience  of  youth 
and  of  virtuous  womanhood  ?     What  other 

'  Proverbs  i,  23-31. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  23 1 

balsam  for  the  heart's  wounds ;  what  other 
cordial  amid  calamities ;  what  other  deter- 
rent from  crime ;  in  a  word,  what  other 
gospel  answering  to  all  the  wants  of  hu- 
manity in  life,  in  death,  and  beyond  the 
grave?  If  I  were  hard-hearted  enough 
to  pluck  a  babe  from  the  bosom  of  mater- 
nal love  and  tenderness,  and  give  it  to  be 
nursed  by  the  she-wolf  of  ancient  fable, 
even  yet  I  should  pause  before  I  could 
take  away  from  a  whole  people,  fathers, 
mothers,  young  men  and  maidens,  and 
from  lisping  childhood,  the  confidence  of 
the  apostle  when  he  exclaimed,  ''  Lord,  to 
whom  shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words 
of  Eternal  Life." 

My  young  brethren  of  Kenyon  College, 
I  have  pointed  you,  in  these  lectures,  to 
two  classes  of  our  fellow-men;  to  their 
contrasted  lives  and  the  utterly  diverse 
influences  they  have  exercised  on  times 
and  peoples.  Your  own  career,  I  trust, 
will  be  fulfilled  in  the  coming  age,  in  the 


232  HOLY    WRIT 

twentieth  century.  Choose  ye,  this  day, 
by  God's  help,  what  it  shall  be  in  its  ends, 
its  aims,  in  its  relation  to  your  country  and 
to  your  Maker.  It  should  be  unselfish, 
heroic,  soldier-like — yes,  like  that  of  sol- 
diers, *'  whose  business  'tis  to  die."  Says 
one  who  knows  too  well  the  emptiness  of 
a  life  shaped  by  other  maxims :  ''  The  most 
logical  attitude  of  the  tJiinker,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  religion,  is  to  act  as  tJwiigJi  it  zvere 
true''  *'  One  should  behave  as  though 
God  and  the  soul  existed."  Whose  ex- 
perience dictates  this  as  the  philosophy  of 
Hfe?  Of  course  every  believer's — but,  I 
believe  in  the  depths  of  my  soul,  every 
infidel's  not  less — when  daylight  dies 
away  from  him,  and  the  shadows  of  the 
Dark  Valley  begin  to  appall.  For  he  who 
says  this  is  the  brilliant  Renan,  the  same 
unhappy  man  whose  genius  and  perpetual 
endeavour  it  has  been  to  double-damn  his 
countrymen,  delivering  them  over  again 
to  a  reign  of  terror  and  despair.^ 
»  Note  XXV. 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  233 

"  Behave  as  if  God  and  the  soul  existed 
.  .  .  act  as  though  religion  were  true." 
So  says  the  Christian  to  him  who  exclaims, 
"  Lord,  I  believe ;  help  thou  mine  unbe- 
lief "  ;  and  so  say  even  the  worst  of  men  to 
all  who  are  in  peril  of  becoming  as  misera- 
ble as  they.  Assume,  therefore,  the  truth 
of  Holy  Writ,  and  begin  to  shape  your  life 
accordingly,  if  only  by  saying  daily  the 
Lord's  Prayer.  You  will  find  it  the  only 
prescription  that  imparts  to  the  young  man 
wisdom  and  understanding — the  wisdom 
that  inspires  a  true  manliness,  and  makes 
ignoble  thoughts  and  habits  repulsive  to 
taste  as  well  as  to  conscience.  This  alone 
tempers  youthful  passion,  and  supplies 
purity  to  thought  and  deed.  It  yields  in 
contact  and  conflict  with  men  the  most 
elevated  rules  of  conduct ;  supplies  to  in- 
firmity and  decay  a  firm  support;  affords 
an  animating  assurance  in  the  prospect  of 
death.  If,  in  thus  *'  acting  as  if  religion 
were  true,"   you  find  it  the  base  of  nearly 


234  HOLY    WRIT 

everything  that  elevates  society;  that 
ameliorates  the  condition  of  the  poor  and 
suffering;  that  dissuades  from  crime  and 
restrains  the  hand  of  violence;  that  knits 
together  the  extremes  of  human  estate, 
making  us  "members  one  of  another"; 
becomes,  in  short,  the  source  and  spring  of 
all  that  realizes  ''the  bonds  of  love,  the 
cords  of  a  man" — if,  I  say,  as  you  press 
on,  and  work  up,  and  patiently  refuse  to 
despair,  you  find  yourself  forced  to  recog- 
nize that  nothing  is  more  strengthening 
than  that  great  law  of  Christian  endeavour 
— "  None  of  us  liveth  to  himself,  and  no 
man  dieth  to  himself" — then,  surely,  you 
will  have  solved  every  difficulty  and  con- 
quered every  doubt.  You  will  have  learned 
that  this  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  this  only, 
has  been  the  inspiration  of  science,  of 
thought,  of  discovery,  of  invention,  of  judg- 
ment in  counsel  and  efficiency  in  action, 
of  progressive  freedom,  of  rational  liberty 
and  social  happiness,  of  all  that  makes  a 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  235 

people  truly  great.  But  you  will  feel  yet 
more  deeply  that,  while  such  are  its  inci- 
dental blessings,  its  primary  object  and 
concern  is  to  regenerate  humanity  at  the 
core ;  to  cut  out  the  ulcer  and  deformity 
of  sin ;  to  implant  a  new  heart ;  to  make 
us  the  children  of  God  and  heirs  of  immor- 
tahty.  So  then,  at  least  in  the  little  sphere 
of  our  personal  work  and  influence,  we 
shall  leave  this  world  the  better  for  that  we 
have  lived  and  laboured  in  it.  It  may  be 
ours,  through  much  of  trial  and  self-discip- 
line, 

"  To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days ;  " 

and  so  to  accomplish  some  great  work  that 
makes  life  a  victory  and  death  a  triumph; 
but  let  us  be  content  if  only  we  may  dry 
some  tears  from  mortal  eyes,  waken  here  and 
there  a  sordid  soul  to  shake  off  his  bondage 
and  walk  as  a  child  of  the  Day ;  if  only  we 
may  "  do  with  our  might  what  our  hand 
findeth  to  do,"  in  the  discharge  of  duty. 
To  you,    as   just    putting   on   the    har- 


236  HOLY    WRIT 

ness,  with  all  happy  possibilities  before 
you,  let  me  commend  those  maxims  of  the 
Christian  Tully,  with  which  he  sounded  his 
triimpet  for  a  fresh  advance  of  the  apos- 
tolic army,  just  as  Constantine  gave  peace 
to  the  suffering  Church  and  brought  upon 
her  the  enervating  peril  of  friendship  with 
the  world.  "  If  life  is  a  thing  to  be  cov- 
eted," he  says,  *'  by  one  who  is  wise,  ver- 
ily for  no  other  object  should  I  desire  to 
live  than  that  I  may  achieve  somewhat 
that  is  useful  and  worthy  of  a  lifetime." 
And  again,  looking  to  life's  goal,  afar  or 
near  at  hand  as  the  case  may  be,  he  adds : 
**  I  shall  feel  that  I  have  truly  lived  and 
have  discharged  my  duty  as  a  man,  if  only 
some  souls,  freed  from  error  by  my  effort, 
have  been  directed  into  the  way  that  leads 
to  heaven."     So  speaks  Lactantius. 

So  may  you  put  on  your  armour,  and 
so  lay  it  aside.  You  will  thus  have  made 
yourself  the  fellow-soldier  of  one  whose 
incomparable  work  for  his  fellow- men  was 


AND    MODERN    THOUGHT.  237 

crowned  at  last,  by  going  lorth  and  suf- 
fering for  Christ,  without  the  gate,  bear- 
ing His  reproach.  You  may  visit  the 
scene  of  his  martyrdom,  on  the  Ostian 
road,  under  the  walls  of  Rome.  As  you 
stand  there,  you  will  seem  to  read  his 
epitaph:  *' I  have  fought  a  good  fight ;  I 
have  kept  the  Faith."  But  there  is  one 
spot  in  ancient  Rome  which  I  own  impressed 
me  yet  more.  It  marks  the  site  of  Nero's 
Circus,  where  so  many  Christian  heroes  had 
been  burned  in  coats  of  pitch  and  sulphur 
in  the  tyrant's  vain  attempt  to  extirpate  the 
Christian  name.  That  spot  is  marked  by 
a  simple  monolith,  the  obelisk  brought 
from  Egypt,  of  which  everybody  has  read. 
Reared,  as  it  were,  over  prostrate  idolatry, 
and  surmounted  by  a  simple  cross,  it  is  in- 
scribed with  a  text  from  the  Apocalypse 
which  is  at  once  a  history  and  a  prophecy : 
Vicit  Leo  e  tribit  Jtidce — "  The  Lion  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  Root  of  David, 
hath  prevailed." 


NOTES 


I. 

General  Note. — In  preparing  these  lect- 
ures for  publication,  I  have  given  them, 
as  far  as  possible,  a  special  adaptation  to 
the  wants  of  young  men  in  our  colleges  and 
universities.  During  the  year  that  slipped 
away  (before  the  authorities  in  charge  were 
ready  to  put  the  lectures  to  press)  I  was 
shocked  by  the  irreligion  of  some  of  our 
professional  educators,  and  of  a  popular 
lecturer  from  abroad  who  undertook  to  in- 
culcate contempt  for  Christianity  in  writing 
about  the  Lick  Observatory,  in  California. 
The  president  of  our  greatest  university 
eulogized  the  polygamous  Mormons,  and, 
though  a  son  of  New  England,  compared 
favourably  the  nomadic  adventures  of  "  Joe 
Smith  "  and  his  miserable  dupes  with  those 
of  the  pious  Brewster  and  the  "  Pilgrim 
Fathers."  And  one,  who  has  subse- 
quently been  elevated  to  the  presidency 
of  Cornell,  visiting  the  city  where  I  dwell, 
on  a  public  occasion  uttered  words  of  con- 
tempt for  Holy  Scripture,  which  I  took 
238 


NOTES.  239 

occasion  as  publicly  to  rebuke.  To  such 
corrupters  of  truth  and  morality  our  young 
men  are  sent  by  the  thousand,  to  be  formed 
and'  framed  for  hfe;  and  what  can  be 
looked  for  as  the  result  but  suicidal  pes- 
simism ? 

As  I  shall  have  occasion  to  add  several 
notes  on  this  subject  to  this  more  general 
one,  I  herewith  present  young  men  with  a 
chronological  table  illustrating  the  relations 
of  modern  and  ancient  scientists  to  the 
fabulous  astronomy  which  Copernicus  ex- 
ploded, and  which  Renan  and  others  are 
never  tired  of  charging  upon  Christianity. 
It  was  science  itself  which  for  ages  before 
and  after  the  Incarnation  tied  and  bound 
the  human  mind  to  a  most  intricate  and 
yet  a  most  specious  invention  of  its  own. 
To  this  men  of  science  clung  with  a  big- 
otry the  most  passionate  and  persistent ;  re- 
jecting, over  and  over  again,  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  hehocentric  theory,  and  clinging 
to  empiricism  so  superstitiously  that  Coper- 
nicus was  afraid  to  publish  his  discover-, 
ies,  far  more  on  their  account  than  from 
any  fear  of  religious  persecution.  He  was 
himself  an  ecclesiastic^  and  dedicated  his 
work  to  his  Latin  patriarch,  invoking  his 
protection  against  men  of  science.  Nor  is 
this  all,  for  men  of  science  the  most  eminertty 
and  deservedly  sOy  still  resisted  the  true  phi- 


240  NOTES. 

losophy  for  a  century  and  a  half  longer.  In 
England  the  learned  Bishop  Wilkins  was 
almost  its  only  conspicuous  defender  in  the 
first  decades  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  he  did  more  than  any  professed  scien- 
tist to  teach  it  to  his  countrymen  and  to 
us.     But  here  are  the  tabulated  facts : 

Table. 

1.  (B.C.  555-497.)  Pythagoras  and  his 
disciples  taught  the  heliocentric  system. 
Philolaus  of  Crotona  (B.C.  374)  and  Aris- 
tarchus  the  Samian  (B.C.  400)  defended  it. 

2.  (B.C.  429-347.)  Plato,  taught  by  Py- 
thagoras, cautiously  hinted  it  in  his  Timaeus, 
and  Aristotle  recognized  it  as  Plato's  view, 
which  he  himself  seems  not  to  have  ac- 
cepted. 

3.  (B.C.  160-127.)   Hipparchus  not  only 
rejected  the  heliocentric  theory,  but  collect- 
ing and  formulating  empirical  ideas,  pro- 
duced the  useful  and  for  the  age  most  brill- 
iant system  of  cycle  and   epicycle,  which 

by  its  apparently  satisfactory  results  be- 
came the  science  of  **  Modern  Thought," 
and  Jield  the  JuLinan  viind  in  bondage  for 
fifteen  centuries ;  philosophers  riveting  it 
upon  the  intelligence  of  their  times  suc- 
cessively by  their  devotion  to  established 
science,  and  necessarily  imparting  it  to  the 


NOTES.  241 

divines:  for  it  was  the  apparent  duty  of 
ecclesiastics  humbly  and  gratefully  to  ac- 
cept science  from  others  who  made  it  their 
trade. 

4.  (B.C.  106-43.)  Cicero  understood  the 
heliocentric  theory,  and,  with  his  customary 
clearness,  he  thus  expounds  it : 

"  Hicetas  of  Syracuse  supposed,  accord- 
ing to  Theophrastus,  that  the  sky,  the  sun, 
the  moon,  the  stars — in  a  word,  all  things 
overhead — are  immovable,  and  that  in  the 
universe  only  the  earth  is  in  motion,  turn- 
ing on  its  axis  with  extreme  velocity,  pro- 
ducing the  same  appearances  which  would 
result  if  the  earth  were  immovable  and  the 
heavens  in  motion.  Some  pJiilosophers  con- 
sider Plato  as  sustaining  the  same  opinion 
in  his  Timceiis,  though  not  without  re- 
serve." I  translate  from  the  Paris  edition 
of  181 7,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  371.,  Qucest.  Academ., 
Hber  ii.  39. 

5.  (B.C.  100-44.)  Julius  Caesar,  by  the 
aid  of  science  as  it  stood,  rectified  the  cal- 
endar, but  without  any  reference  to  the 
system  to  which  Cicero  had  pointed. 

6.  (a.D.  130-161.)  The  philosophic  An- 
tonines  were  fiercely  persecuting  the  Chris- 
tians, when  Ptolemy,  of  the  Alexandrian 
schools,  by  his  brilliant  improvements  upon 
Hipparchus,  gave  the  geocentric  system  a 
new  birth,  as  '*  Modern  Thought."     It  was 


242  NOTES. 

now  called  by  his  name.  The  Church  natu- 
rally accepted  it  as  ''science."  Justin 
Martyr,  our  only  philosopher  of  that  age, 
and  the  first  to  claim  philosophy  for  Christ, 
was  nevertheless  too  busy  in  persuading 
philosophers  to  cease  from  persecuting  his 
brethren,  to  give  much  attention  to  astron- 
omy. 

7.  (a.d.  1 1 5-1 8 1.)  Theophilus  of  Anti- 
och  becomes  the  founder  of  the  science  of 
"Biblical  Chronology."  Hales  praises  him 
for  the  degree  of  accuracy  he  attained,  and 
Usher  for  his  delicate  sense  of  his  deficien- 
cies. (See  "Ante-Nicene  Fathers,"  vol.  ii., 
pp.  87-120,  ed.  Buffalo,  1885.)  The  Tub- 
ingen school  discredit  his  authorship  of 
some  of  the  writings  attributed  to  him  ;  but 
I  adopt  from  Zahn  the  date  170  A.D.  as  the 
period  at  which  he  flourished.  He  adheres 
to  earlier  Alexandrian  computations,  but 
deserves  mention  before  I  reach  the  next 
name. 

8.  (a.d.  200-245.)  JuHus  Africanus, 
"  the  ornament  of  the  age  in  which  he 
lived,"  shows  that,  amid  constant  trials  and 
persecutions,  the  great  Christian  school  of 
Alexandria  was  pursuing  scientific  chronol- 
ogy, in  reliance  on  the  scientists  of  the  age. 
(See  "Ante-Nicene  Fathers,"  ut  supra,  vol. 
vi.,  pp.  123-140.) 

9.  (a.d.    325.)    The  Alexandrian  patri- 


NOTES.  243 

archate  was  now  the  seat  of  such  astro- 
nomical science  as  had  been  recognized  by 
heathen  philosophers,  and  to  its  bishops  the 
Council  of  Nicaea  confided  the  task  of  the 
annual  computation  of  Easter,  which  they 
were  to  proclaim  every  year  to  the  Catho- 
lic Churches  at  the  season  of  the  Epiphany. 
Under  Constantine,  therefore,  astronomical 
science  was  diligently  cultivated  at  Alex- 
andria, in  humble  submission  to  the  '*  Mod- 
ern Thought  "  of  Ptolemaeus.  The  Easter 
Tables  in  our  Prayer-Books  are  specimens 
of  their  methods  of  computation,  and  of 
their  admirable  use  of  the  science  of  their 
times. 

10.  (a.D.  130-1543.)  From  Ptolemy  to 
Copernicus  is  justly  called  a  *'  stationary 
period."  Dr.  Whewell  thus  describes  it: 
**  It  is  a  proof  of  tJie  feebleness  and  servility 
of  intelleet  in  this  period,  that  no  one  was 
found  to  try  the  fortune  of  the  heliocentric 
hypothesis,  according  to  the  imp7'oved  as- 
tronomical knoivledge  of  the  time.''  (See 
Whewell,  "  Inductive  Sciences,"  vol.  i.,  p. 
259,  ed.  New  York,  1858.)  Ptolemy  had 
improved  li,  and  as  his  improvements  seemed 
to  confirm  the  geocentric  theory,  and  to  se- 
cure the  results  then  considered  "  practical," 
all  the  world  acquiesced  in  it.  Christianity 
was  engaged  in  converting  the  heathen  to 
Christ,  and  cultivated  science  only  as  it  was 


244  NOTES. 

taught  by  those  who  professed  this  noble 
vocation. 

1 1.  (a.D.  640.)  By  order  of  Caliph  Omar, 
his  generals  burned  the  great  library  of 
Alexandria,  and  Christian  learning  seemed 
to  perish.  But  the  Arabs  accepted  it,  and 
proved  good  trustees  of  the  treasure,  though 
they  added  little  to  its  store.  (See  Whew- 
ell,  tit  supra ^ 

12.  (a.D.  1 194-1250.)  Frederick  II., 
'^Stupor  Mtindi^'  was  crowned  over  the 
"Holy  Roman  Empire,"  A.D.  1215.  He 
was  a  philosopher,  and  learned  even  be- 
yond his  times,  but  persecuted  Christians 
for  ''  heresies,"  and  adhered  to  the  super- 
stitions of  the  age,  cultivating  astrology 
rather  than  astronomy,  yet  contributing  to 
the  period  a  spirit  of  impatient  appetite 
which  was  a  prelude  to  the  revival  of 
learning. 

13.  (a.D.  1 203-1 284.)  Alphonsus  the 
Wise,  who  inherited  science  from  the 
Spanish  Arabians,  and  reigned  many  years 
in  Leon  and  Castile,  was  a  philosopher  for 
his  times,  but  accepted  the  science  of  the 
day  with  dissatisfaction.  To  him  the  witty 
but  profane  complaint  is  attributed  :  '*  If  I 
had  been  of  the  Maker's  privy-council  when 
He  created  the  universe,  I  could  have 
advised  Him  better." 

14.  (a.D.    1453.)  The  fall  of  Constanti- 


NOTES.  245 

nople  drove  Greek  learning  to  Italy,  and 
the  residue  of  the  century  is  the  trophy  of 
what  Christians  of  the  older  Church  carried 
to  Western  Europe  after  they  had  regained 
from  the  Arabs,  unimpaired,  but  little  im- 
proved, their  own  ancient  property  of 
astronomical  science.      (See  11,  supra.) 

15.  (a.d.  1473-1534-)  Nicolas  Koper- 
nik,  a  Latin  Presbyter  of  Poland,  established 
the  heliocentric  system  scientifically,  and 
published  his  immortal  work  just  before  he 
died.  He  acknowledged  that  it  left  many 
difficulties  unsolved,  but  he  proved  these 
the  small  dust  of  the  balance  as  compared 
with  the  difficulties  and  absurdities  it  took 
away. 

16.  (a.d.  1 564-1642.)  Though  many 
divines  as  well  as  scholars  had  favoured  the 
Copernican  theory,  Galileo,  through  the  in- 
vention of  the  telescope,  and  the  discovery 
by  its  aid  of  lunar  phases  in  the  planet 
Venus,  crowned  the  Copernican  system 
with  demonstrated  success. 

17.  (a.d.  1 534-1674.)  It  was  opposed, 
nevertheless,  by  men  of  science  of  the  first 
order,  such  as  Muller — or  Regiomontanus 
—(died  1478),  by  TychoBrahe  (died  1601), 
and  Francis  Bacon,  who  died  in  1626. 
Milton  (died  1674)  wavered,  as  his  great 
poem  shows,  and  thus,  even  after  Kepler 
(died    1630),   Europe    had    not    accepted 


246  NOTES. 

genuine  science,  in  the  persons  of  the  great- 
est professors  of  ''Modern  Tliotcghty 

18.  (a.d.  1473-1543.)  Thus  Copernicus, 
the  Christian  priest,  was  in  advance  of 
science  by  more  than  a  hundred  years. 
Compare  these  facts  with  the  sneers  of 
Renan  and  of  Sir  Edwin  Arnold. 


II. 

The Preternatiirali^.  22). — What  I  mean 
by  7nj/  words  about  optics  and  acoustics 
may  be  explained  by  a  reference  to 
**  ReHgion  and  Chemistry  "  (p.  43),  by  J.  P. 
Cooke,  Esq.,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and 
Mineralogy  in  Harvard  University :  Scrib- 
ner.  New  York,  1864.  He  quotes  Tyn- 
dal's  anecdote  of  one  who  could  not  hear 
the  shrill  noise  of  innumerable  crickets, 
though  at  the  same  time  the  dull  thud  of  a 
donkey's  hoof,  almost  inaudible  to  others, 
was  very  perceptible  to  his  peculiar  ear. 
This  is  scientifically  explained,  and  the 
analogy  between  sound  and  light  is  said  to 
be  complete,  creating  many  similar  dis- 
crepancies in  human  experience.  The  eye 
of  one  may  see  what  is  invisible  to  another, 
by  known  laws  of  ethereal  waves  that  pro- 
duce the  sensation  of  light  on  the  retina. 
Scripture,  therefore,  on  scientific  principles, 
gives   us  a  fact  (II.  Kings  vi.    16)  which. 


NOTES.  247 

until  these  laws  were  understood,  seemed 
incredible.  **  There  is  a  Christian  theory," 
says  Professor  Cooke,  *'  which  is  perfectly 
consistent  with  all  known  facts  "  (p.  323). 
The  vision  of  the  shepherds  (St.  Luke  ii. 
13,  14)  and  their  hearing  of  angelic  voices 
is  vindicated  by  principles  which  Professor 
Cooke  lays  down  (p.  44),  though  without 
reference  to  that  or  any  other  text.  Ac- 
cept, therefore,  the  pretcrnatiial,  not  the 
supejiiatnral,  for  the  base  of  many  miracles 
now  known  to  be  scientifically  possible. 

I  have  suggested  that  magnetism  as  now 
associated  with  electricity  intimates  the 
possibility  of  electrical  currents  in  nature 
which  might  conceivably  lift  a  weight  of 
iron  from  the  water,  on  the  principle  of  the 
''carrying  power"  of  a  magnet.  ''Elec- 
tro-biology," so-called,  though  prematurely 
classed  with  sciences,  appears  to  me  to  have 
demonstrated  something  in  nature  which 
they  name  ody lie  force,  that  explains  much 
more  than  is  claimed  for  it  by  empirics : 
e.g.,  the  flight  of  birds,  or  rather  their  rising 
in  air  and  poising  in  the  tenuity  of  ether — 
as  the  weighty  eagle  does,  bearing  its  prey 
also,  high  over  Mt.  Blanc — seems  by  no 
means  sufBciently  explained  by  mere  wing- 
power.  The  sea-gull  darts,  rather  than 
flies,  far  ahead  of  the  swiftest  steamer,  and 
then  flings  himself  back  again,  and  plays 


248  NOTES. 

against  violent  winds  to  and  fro,  in  mid- 
ocean.  So  the  little  petrel  walks  upon  the 
waters,  apparently,  in  a  manner  not  wholly 
explained  by  his  wings ;  and  the  flying- 
fish  seems  to  shoot  into  air  by  a  projectile 
force  only  feebly  subject  to  fins,  which  are 
not  wings  at  all,  and  which  can  hardly  ac- 
count for  its  powerful  leaps  and  springs. 
I  am  not  anxious  to  explain  away  the 
supernatural.  I  see  no  difficulty  in  believ- 
ing that  the  Almighty  suspends  His  own 
laws  by  the  same  omnipotence  that  created 
them  ;  but  I  suggest  that  our  Lord,  through 
human  agents,  often  wrought  many  mar- 
vels in  the  exercise  of  His  omniscience  by 
the  hmnaiient  forces  of  nature  and  not  by 
any  suspension  of  them.  Had  it  been  pos- 
sible to  lay  the  Atlantic  cable  without 
public  observation,  the  most  astounding 
**  impossibilities "  would  have  been  dem- 
onstrated as  fact,  and  must  have  been  re- 
garded as  miracles.  When  our  Master  said, 
**  Lazarus  is  dead,"  or  to  the  nobleman, 
"Thy  son  liveth,"  He  may,  as  a  man,  have 
exercised  certain  natural  forces,  by  which 
He  perceived  what  He  thus  announced.  Of 
this  possibility  the  empiricism  of  our  day 
seems  to  furnish  evidence  in  anecdotes  that 
are  not  altogether  to  be  classed  with  its 
palpable  frauds.  For,  "it  appears,"  says 
Professor  Cooke,  "  that  our  bodies  are  mere 


NOTES.  249 

channels  of  force  ;  machines  whose  motive 
power  emanates  from  the  great  centre 
of  the  solar  system  "  (p.  235).  Grant  this, 
and  you  have  a  vast  magazine  of  the  mys- 
teries of  nature,  which  should  make  the 
scientist  ashamed  of  himself  when  he  pro- 
nounces a  miracle  "  impossible"  ;  or  when 
he  affirms  the  absolute  fixedness  of  laws 
about  which  we  know  nothing.  The  Chris- 
tian's God  is  omniscient  and  omnipotent. 
We  cannot  limit  the  Almighty.  Nor  can 
we  forget  that  He  who  gave  us  five  senses 
might  have  given  us  fifty — every  one  open- 
ing up  to  us  new  views  of  His  resources, 
and  of  things  not  dreamed  of  by  philoso- 
phers. 

III. 

Nicene  Faith  (p.  24). — The  confessions 
of  Luther  and  Calvin  are  made  creeds,  or 
terms  of  communion;  but  far  more  com- 
pHcated  than  these  is  the  creed  of  Laynez, 
called  after  Pius  IV.  This  "  creed"  itself 
is  imposed  in  direct  violation  of  Catholic 
law,  which  forbids  the  compilation  of  any 
other  than  the  Nicene  Creed,  or  additions 
thereto.  Laynez's  creed  requires  ''  a  firm 
faith  and  profession  of  all  and  every  one  of 
those  things  which  the  Holy  Roman  Church 
maketh  use  of,''  adding  twelve  articles  to 
the  Nicene,  or  Catholic  faith,  of  which  one 


250  NOTES. 

is  the  following:  viz.,  "I  likewise  un- 
doubtedly receive  and  profess  all  other 
things  defined  and  declared  by  the  sacred 
canons  and  general  councils,  and  partic- 
ularly by  the  Holy  Council  of  Trent." 
Here,  then,  the  General  Councils  of  an- 
tiquity are  not  sufficient  to  define  a  Cath- 
olic;  but  particularly,  the  interminable 
system  of  Trent  theology  is  demanded  as 
that  without  believing  which  we  cannot  be 
saved.  Think  what  is  here  required,  and 
how  few  of  those  who  profess  it  have  any 
idea  of  what  all  those  tilings  are.  Note, 
this  is  the  creed  of  **  the  Holy  Roman 
Church,"  not  of  the  Catholic  Church.  For 
the  creed  of  Pius  IV.,  of  which  Laynez  is 
the  true  author,  Americans  may  as  well  look 
into  the  "  Compendium  Ritualis  Romani  " 
(p.  193),  Baltimore,  1842.  On  "  the  Chal- 
cedonian  Decree,"  which  forbids  any  other 
than  the  Nicene  Creed  to  be  made  the 
Creed  of  Catholics,  see  the  valuable  work 
of  the  Rev.  John  Fulton,  D.D.,  New  York, 
1892. 

IV. 

Journalism  (p.  32). — How  largely  our 
newspapers  deal  in  scandal  and  crime  is 
becoming  a  serious  matter  for  the  moralist, 
if  it  be  true  that  *'  evil  communications  cor- 
rupt good  manners."     We  have  been  in- 


NOTES.  251 

formed,  in  a  recent  lecture  by  the  accom- 
plished Mr.  White,  our  minister  to  the  Court 
of  St.  Petersburg,  that  almost  innumerable 
cuttings  gathered  from  newspapers  pub- 
lished in  all  parts  of  the  country  prove  that 
homicide  is  more  prevalent  among  us  than 
in  any  other  country  called  civiHzed,  and 
is  largely  committed  with  impunity,  or  with 
trifling  penalties.  This  statement  is  sus- 
tained by  the  official  '*  Census  Bulletin," 
No.  182,  now  before  me,  in  which  ''homi- 
cide" is  thus  reported:  "Of  82,329  pris- 
oners in  the  United  States,  June  i,  1890, 
the  number  charged  with  homicide  was 
7386.  .  .  .  More  than  one  eighth  are 
awaiting  trial;  of  those  convicted,  158  are 
awaiting  execution  ;  49  of  these  were  found 
in  the  Kansas  penitentiary,  110  day  having 
been  fixed  for  their  execution  by  any  gov- 
ernor since  1872.  The  average  sentence  for 
convicts  not  sentenced  to  death  is  13  years, 
292  days."  Many  culprits  of  this  kind  are 
pardoned  after  trifling  imprisonment ;  many 
after  indictment  are  let  out  on  bail,  and  are 
never  tried. 

V. 

Qicinet  (p.  35). — (Recur  to  Note  III.) 
His  work  on  *'  Ultramontanism  "  was  trans- 
lated, under  its  author's  sanction,  and  pub- 
lished in  London,  1845,  with  the  subordi- 


252  NOTES. 

nate  title  of  "  The  Roman  Church  and 
Modern  Society."  Unfortunately  he  does 
not  confine  himself  to  this  strictly  accurate 
and  self-imposed  term  *'  Roman,"  but  falls 
into  the  slip-shod  vulgarism  of  confound- 
ing it  with  "  Catholic."  But  the  work  has 
many  merits,  though  full  of  the  less  offen- 
sive forms  of  *'  modern  thought."  Con- 
sult the  Third  Lecture.  He  says  :  **  Lay- 
nez,  the  Jesuit,  became  the  soul  of  the 
Council,  and  .  .  .  the  organization  of  the 
Church  assumed  a  new  form "  (p.  42). 
"  The  address  consisted  in  making  this 
change,  without  anywhere  speaking  of  it'' 
When  the  Vatican  Council,  after  three  ages 
of  reticence,  was  convened,  the  bishops 
found  themselves  deprived  of  all  synod- 
ical  rights,  and  reduced  to  a  mere  "  synod 
of  sacristans" — as  said  Darboy,  Archbishop 
of  Paris.  The  pontiff  issued  the  dogma 
of  his  own  Infallibility,  and  they  were 
there  only  to  register  it ;  their  votes  had 
nothing  to  do  with  defining  it,  but  mere- 
ly signified  their  submission.  Of  course, 
neither  this  nor  the  Trent  conventicle  had 
any  character  in  common  with  the  free 
Councils  of  antiquity.  To  this  fearful  con- 
trast Quinet  attaches  special  importance. 


NOTES.  253 


VI. 


The  Vulgate  (p.  36).— The  Vulgate  of 
St.  Jerome  is  not  that  which  was  thrust 
upon  the  Roman  Church  by  this  decree. 
It  is  another  and  a  corrupted  Vulgate 
which  was  made  equal  to  the  ipsissinia 
verba  of  the  original  Hebrew.  In  1590 
Pope  Sixtus  V.  issued  his  second  edition 
of  an  infallible  Bible,  forbidding  all  other 
Bibles  to  be  read.  He  pronounced  it  the 
book  authorized  by  the  Trent  Council ;  to 
be  ''  cited,  and  no  other,  in  all  public  or 
private  citations,  expositions,  etc."  But  in 
1593  Clement  VIII.  cancelled  all  this,  and 
put  out  another  edition,  largely  corrected 
and  altered  from  the  one  which  his  prede- 
cessor had  declared  to  be  the  Vulgate  de- 
fined and  accepted  by  the  Trent  Council. 
Now  turn  back  to  Note  III.  and  observe 
that  all  the  decrees  and  definitions  of  that 
Council  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  creed 
itself,  as  by  that  Council  ordained  for  the 
use  of  the  **  Holy  Roman  Church."  So, 
then,  Clement's  Bible,  or  that  of  Sixtus, 
which?  Both  are  equally  **  infallible,"  but 
that  which  Clement  has  superseded  as  cor- 
rupt in  many  places  is  the  one  which  Six- 
tus declares  to  be  the  one  ordained  by  the 
creed  of  his  Church.  See  the  *'  Treatise 
of   Thomas   James "    (a  contemporary   of 


254  NOTES. 

these  popes),  reprinted  by  the  Rev.  John 
Edmund  Cox,  M.A.,  ed.  London,  Parker, 
1843- 

VII. 

England  and  Trent  (p.  49). — Let  the 
student  recur  to  the  Conference  of  Poissy 
(Sept.  9,  1 561),  and  the  remarkable  letter 
addressed  to  the  Pope  by  the  Queen- 
mother,  as  its  prelude,  in  which  she  de- 
clares the  number  of  those  who  had  aban- 
doned his  Communion  in  France  **  too 
great  to  be  restrained  by  laws  or  force  of 
arms."  Laynez  appeared  at  this  colloquy  ; 
the  Trent  Council  did  not  adjourn  till  Dec. 
4,  1563.  It  was  opened  Dec.  13,  1545. 
It  was  extraordinary  that  Catherine  de 
Medicis  seemed  favourable  to  reform.  But 
she  resorted  to  the  massacre  of  St.  Barthol- 
omew's day,  as  her  final  resource  for  de- 
stroying the  Huguenots,  and  the  Pontiff 
celebrated  it  with  Te  Denms. 

VIII. 

Beza  (p.  49). — After  the  council,  Cathe- 
rine wrote  a  letter  in  which  she  seems  to 
blame  the  Romish  ecclesiastics  for  the  fail- 
ure. She  also  sent  a  request  to  the  pontiff 
to  "  re-establish  the  marriage  of  priests  and 
the  Communion  in  the  two  species  of  bread 


NOTES.  255 

and  wine."  France  was  ripe  for  reforma- 
tion, but  Beza  fell  into  the  net  spread  for 
him,  i.e.,  to  get  the  Lutherans  and  Cal- 
vinists  into  discord ;  and  Laynez  **  turned 
the  colloquy  into  open  war."  See  I'Abbe 
Guettee,  *'  Histoire  de  I'eglise  de  France," 
vol.  ix.,  pp.  22-45. 

IX. 

PJiilosophy  in  Germany  (p.  53). — Dr. 
Stirling's  edition  of  Schwegler  is  succinct, 
and  very  useful  for  all  ordinary  readers, 
and  the  editor's  annotations  are  all  valu- 
able. His  partiality  for  Hegel  will  com- 
mend this  editor  to  many  in  these  days. 
He  says :  ''  The  resurrection  of  Christ  is, 
to  Hegel,  an  actual  fact,  etc."  (p.  440). 
''Handbook,"  etc.,  ed.  New  York,  Put- 
nam's Sons. 

The  work  of  Ueberweg,  translated  by 
my  friend  the  late  Professor  Morris  of  the 
Michigan  University,  and  enriched  by  the 
annotations  of  Dr.  Schaff  and  others,  is 
desirable  for  the  industrious  student. 


Hegel  (p.  55). — It  seems  only  fair  to 
quote  here  the  language  of  the  editor  men- 
tioned in  the  former  note.  He  cuts  the 
Gordian  knot  ("  Where  is  God  in  His  sys- 


256  NOTES. 

tern?")  by  reminding  us  that  "Schopen- 
hauer hated  Hegel."  He  then  claims  for 
Hegel  that  his  philosophy  was  "  avozvedly 
a  philosophy  of  restoration  and  religious 
reaction."  And  he  credits  him  with  the 
following  positions:  (i)  Only  in  religious 
belief  is  society  possible.  (2)  A  nation 
that  believes  not  in  God  and  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  in  the  siipcynatural  ele- 
ments generally,  must,  even  in  its  own 
madness,  dissipate  and  destroy  itself.  (3) 
Negation  had  done  its  work ;  it  was  time 
for  the  affirmative  to  step  in.  Stirling's 
edition  of  Schwegler  (translated),  nt  supra. 

XI. 

Clement  and  Athanasins  (p.  55). — I  am 
thankful  that  I  can  here  refer  to  one  of  the 
professors  of  "modern  thought,"  who  has 
advanced  very  far  toward  the  highest 
thought  in  his  estimate  of  these  grand  old 
masters.  He  says :  "  It  is  instructive  to 
note  how  closely  Athanasius  approaches  the 
confines  of  modern  scientific  thought,  sim- 
ply through  his  fundamental  conception  of 
God  as  the  indwelling  life  of  the  universe." 
See  "The  Idea  of  God,"  by  Professor  John 
Fiske,  pp.  83-109,  ed.  Boston,  1886.  See 
also  "  Institutes  of  Christian  History,"  by 
Bishop  Coxe,  pp.  27,  28,  ed.Xhicago,  1887. 


NOTES.  257 


XII. 


After  Schleierntac her,  etc.  (p.  55). — Here 
Auberlen,  who  does  full  justice  to  Schlei- 
ermacher,  must  be  consulted.  He  says : 
"  His  followers,  the  ablest  among  them, 
very  soon  saw  that  Christian  theology  could 
not  long  remain  on  the  standpoint  of  their 
master.  .  .  .  Beginning  from  that  which 
Schleiermacher  had  established  afresh,  the 
fides  qua  credititr,  they  sought  also  to 
make  clear  the  fides  quce  creditttr,  the  sav- 
ing truth  of  the  Bible  and  the  Church, 
and  to  bring  it  out  with  growing  fulness" 
(p.  362).  '*  Divine  Revelation "  (trans- 
lated), ed.  Edinburgh,  1867,  Clark.  For 
the  plain  story  of  reviving  faith  and  love  in 
Germany,  see  Professor  Cairns's  translation 
of  "  Krummacher's  Autobiography,"  New 
York,  1869,  Carter.  It  is  a  devout  book 
which  any  one  may  read  with  profit,  and 
which  the  student  of  Germany  (in  the  be- 
ginnings of  its  revival  of  faith)  will  find  a 
most  interesting  reviewal. 

XIII. 

The  Old  Catholics  (p.  64). — While  the 
great  mind  and  spirit  of  Dollinger  must  be 
credited  with  the  brave  movement  which 
rescued  a  few  souls  out  of  Sardis,  at  the 


258  NOTES. 

crisis  of  Pius  IX. 's  "  Infallibility  decree,"  I 
must  here  recall  the  beloved  name  of  my 
friend  Hirscher,  as  the  forerunner  of  this 
restoration  of  Catholicity — the  necessity  of 
which  he  felt,  and  urged  powerfully  in  his 
bt'ochtcre,  ''  Die  Kirchlichen  Zustande  der 
Gegenwart,"  Tubingen,  1849.  It  was  trans- 
lated in  1852,  and  published  at  Oxford 
(Parker)  by  the  author  of  these  lectures. 
Hirscher  sustained  this  little  treatise  by 
others  in  the  same  spirit,  but  was  forced  to 
withdraw  them.  They  were  put  into  the 
Index,  and  greatly  censured  by  the  Jesuits. 
He  was  silenced  like  Galileo,  but  like  him 
he  might  ^2iy,  E  pur  si  muove.  Dollinger 
has  carried  on  his  work.  The  movement 
is  daily  strengthening  and  extending  itself. 
See  "  Les  Derniers  Jansenistes,"  par  Leon 
Seche,  vol.  iii.,  p.  31,  etc.,  Paris,  1892, 
Perrin. 

XIV. 

Pessimism  (p.  66). — The  authors  above 
referred  to  tell  us  all  that  is  required  about 
the  place  of  this  pest  in  German  philos- 
ophy ;  but  I  beg  the  reader  who  would 
consider  it  more  attentively,  to  avail  him- 
self of  help  afforded  by  a  learned  and  use- 
ful work,  to  which  I  shall  have  further  occa- 
sion to  refer :  viz., ''  Ecclesiastes  in  Relation 
to  Modern  Pessimism,"  by  the  Rev.  C.  H. 


NOTES.  259 

H.  Wright,  D.D.,  of  Trinity  College,  Dub- 
lin, etc.,  London,  1883,  Hodder.  Note  his 
remarks  on  the  opinion  of  Schopenhauer 
concerning  women,  and  **  the  deficiency  of 
moral  rectitude"  in  the  sex. 

XV. 

Hardoidn  (p.  79). — There  is  every  reason 
to  suppose  that  he  made  his  portentous 
experiment  with  the  approbation  of  the 
Society  of  Jesuits.  He  could  not  have 
published  any  important  work  without  it, 
by  their  rules ;  and  when  they  made  him 
sign  a  retraction  in  view  of  his  want  of  suc- 
cess, it  zvas  a  mere  farce ^  for  he  kept  on  in 
the  same  career  to  the  end,  opposed  by  the 
Galileans,  but  in  high  credit  with  the  Ultra- 
montanes.  His  epitaph  will  serve  for  that 
of  many  critics  of  our  times — Credulitate 
picer,  aiidacid  jtivenis,  dcliriis  scnex.  See 
Supplement  to  Boyle,  by  Chaufepie,  ed. 
Amsterdam,  1750.  Also,  a  good  summary 
of  this  extraordinary  sophist's  career,  in  the 
English  "  Biographical  Dictionary,"  vol.  vi., 
p.  444,  London,  1784. 

XVI. 

Niebithr  (p.  80). — When  I  read  Livy  in 
college,  it  was  almost  universally  conceded 


26o  NOTES. 

that  the  Roman  historians  were  mere  fabu- 
lists. In  1869,  accompanied  by  an  Amer- 
ican savant,  I  surveyed  the  excavations  on 
the  Palatine  and  elsewhere,  under  the  elo- 
quent illustrative  guidance  of  Signor  Lan- 
ciani.  Quotations  from  Livy  had  been  set 
up  in  divers  places  where  the  text  of  that 
author  was  confirmed  by  the  explorations. 
"  We  are  already  far,  thank  Heaven,  from 
the  period  when  it  was  fashionable  to  fol- 
low the  exaggerations  of  tJiat  famotis 
hypercritical  school,  which  denied  every 
event  in  Roman  history  previous  to  the 
second  Punic  War."  So  says  the  erudite 
Lanciani  in  his  work,  "Ancient  Rome  in 
the  Light  of  Recent  Discoveries,"  Boston, 
1888,  Riverside  Press.  Another  "hyper- 
critical school"  is  destined  to  be  left  be- 
hind the  age  in  the  same  way — and  such 
as  Niebiihr  is.  Renan  shall  be. 


XVII. 

Brahmo-Soniaj  (p.  99). — Happily  a  very 
succinct  but  interesting  account  of  this 
"  worshipping  assembly  " — so  they  trans- 
late it — is  accessible  to  American  readers 
in  the  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,  vol.  i., 
p.  319,  ed.  New  York,  1888,  Christian  Lit- 
erature Society. 


NOTES.  261 


XVIII. 


Dr.  Pusey  (p.  106). — For  a  just  and 
generous  view  of  this  learned  and  godly- 
man,  in  his  early  relations  with  Germany, 
see  the  Biography  of  Hugh  James  Rose,  in 
Dean  Burgon's  '*  Lives  of  Twelve  Good 
Men,"  vol.  i.,  p.  134,  London,  1888,  Murray. 


XIX. 

Morals  and  Doctrine  (p.  107). — It  is 
painful  to  note  how  commonly  we  find  that 
indifference  to  Divine  Revelation,  if  it  does 
not  proceed  from  deeds  of  evil,  yet,  sooner 
or  later,  descends  to  them  and  breeds  the 
most  corrosive  ideas  of  what  is  sound  in 
ethics.  The  author  so  thoroughly  exposed, 
by  Lightfoot  at  least,  consented  to  the 
cruel  fraud  by  which  his  worthless  book 
was  made  profitable  merchandise  of  the 
market.  I  have  been  forced  to  mention  in 
these  lectures,  designed  for  the  youth  of  a 
college,  the  peril  to  any  country  of  irre- 
ligious teachings  and  examples  in  chief 
seats  of  education.  And  now,  because  I 
am  amazed  that  Boston  seems  to  acquiesce 
in  the  ethical  character  imparted  to  Har- 
vard by  a  recent  discourse  of  its  President, 
I  feel  obliged  as  an  American,  and  as  one 


262  NOTES. 

descended,  in  part,  from  the  colonial  sires 
of  New  England,  to  put  on  record  in  these 
pages  his  extraordinary  words.  It  proves 
the  inevitable  tendency  of  what  is  called 
Liberalism.  **  Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord," 
with  Belial  to  boot,  are  all  one  in  the 
*'  modern  thought "  that  now  rules  in  that 
venerable  university.  Its  ancient  motto 
has  been  practically  changed  to  Bon  Dieii, 
boil  diable;  which  means,  if  thus  expounded, 
that  all  is  equally  fair  in  morals  reduced  to 
a  cult,  according  to  the  conscience  of  any 
sensuahst.  Here,  then,  is  the  record,  as  I 
take  it  from  the  New  York  Independent — 
italics  are  mine : 

*'  *  The  Deseret  Weekly  '  contains  what 
purports  to  be  an  absolutely  exact  verbatim 
report  of  the  address  made  by  President 
Eliot  of  Harvard  College  in  the  Mormon 
Tabernacle.  With  his  address  is  an  ac- 
count of  the  speech  by  Wilford  Woodruff, 
Brigham  Young's  successor,  cordially  ap- 
proving President  Eliofs  speech,  and  two 
editorials  also  approving  it.  '  The  Deseret 
Weekly '  is  the  organ  of  the  Mormoji 
CJmrch  and  the  authorized  medium  by 
which  the  CJmrch  autJwritics  give  their 
viezt's  to  the  saints.  The  following  is  the 
portion  of  his  address  which  attracted 
notice,  and  it  deserves  all  the  criticism  that 
has  been  given  it: 


NOTES.  263 

*'  'Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  I  have  been 
spending  the  last  forty-eight  hours  in  the 
wilderness  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  part  of 
the  time  unavoidably  detained.  My  mind 
involuntarily  went  back  to  the  first  journey 
across  the  wilderness  by  civilized  men  and 
women,  to  the  plantation  of  tJiis  superb 
colony  by  a  Christian  CJmrch.  It  reminded 
me  of  another  planting  256  years  ago,  a 
planting  of  another  Christian  CJmrch  by 
the  Puritans  and  Pilgrims  in  New  England. 
They,  too,  crossed  a  wilderness — a  wilder- 
ness of  water ;  they,  too,  soitght  freedom  to 
zuorship  God;  they,  too,  sought  to  subdue 
the  wilderness.  They  waited  much  longer 
than  you  have  done  for  fruition.  Their 
soil  was  poorer,  their  labour  less  promptly 
rewarded,  their  sufferings  greater.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  motive  in  colonization  like  the 
religious  motive.  The  history  of  the  world 
proves  that  abundantly.  Mind  will  not  do 
it.  Neither  will  the  search  for  furs,  or  for 
game,  or  for  fish,  or  any  other  wealth  of 
the  land  or  sea.  The  great  successful 
colonies  of  this  world  are  founded  by  men 
and  women  of  religions  enthusiasm.  Here, 
therefore,  you  have  founded  a  colony  in  the 
finest  spirit,  in  the  hope  of  worshipping 
God  accordijtg  to  your  consciences.  And 
yet  here  in  this  beautiful  valley,  here  in 
this  most  successful  of  American  colonies,  so 


264  NOTES. 

far  as  redeeming  the  wilderness  and  estab- 
lishing well-being  in  a  single  generatio7i  is 
concerned,  has  already  arisen  the  question 
of  religious  liberty.'  " 

Such  is  the  "  Liberal "  idea  of  a  "  su- 
perb "  colony  and  of  its  plantation  by 
"Christian  Church"  —  set  forth  for  the 
imitation  of  youth  in  Harvard  University. 
The  "'  poetry "  of  a  Pilgrim  celebration 
was  recently  assigned  to  a  Hibernian 
zealot  of  Romanism :  and  now  the  "  Pil- 
grim Fathers "  are,  rather  unfavourably, 
wrought  into  a  parallel  with  the  besotted 
disciples  of  *' Joe  Smith."  Are  such  ideas 
of  their  forefathers  to  pass  into  the  edu- 
cation of  New  Englanders  as  historical? 
What  is  the  text-book  of  Christian  morals 
at  Harvard  since  the  Bible  has  been  de- 
graded by  "  higher  criticism  "  ?  And  what 
are  the  youth  of  Harvard  to  understand  by 
the  phrase — ''  a  Christian  Church  "  ? 

XX. 

Alcuin  (p.  125). — Let  me  refer  the  read- 
er to  my  "  Institutes  of  Christian  History  " 
if  he  would  have  a  just  idea  of  this  beau- 
tiful character,  who  flourished  just  before 
the  rise  of  the  Papacy,  under  Nicholas  I. 
In  the  *'  Caroline  Books  "  he  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  Anglican  Restoration.      He  was 


NOTES.  265 

the  Athanasius  of  his  age ;  the  instructor 
of  Charlemagne,  and  the  engineer  of  his 
poHcy  in  the  great  Council  of  the  West, 
which  rejected  the  (pretended)  '*  Seventh 
CEcumenical  Council,"  which  was  rather 
the  Conventicle  of  Irene  and  the  offspring 
of  her  corrupt  Court,  if  not  of  her  own 
personal  depravity. 

The  ''Caroline  Books"  are,  naturally, 
omitted  from  the  works  of  Alcuin,  by 
Romish  editors  ;  but  nobody  supposes  that 
Charlemagne  was  their  author,  nor  has 
anybody  been  able  to  conjecture  who  could 
have  written  them  if  not  his  venerated  pre- 
ceptor. My  edition  of  Alcuin  is  that  of 
Frobenius,  Ratisbon,  1777.  In  my  "In- 
stitutes of  Christian  History"  (pp.  120, 
121,  lit  siipi'ci)  the  reader  will  find  a  beau- 
tiful quotation  from  one  of  his  letters,  and 
.an  historical  estimate  of  his  position. 

XXL 

Luther  (p.  131). — If  any  one  wishes  to 
know  who  was  the  founder  of  all  the  Ra- 
tionalism that  has  afflicted  Germany  for 
centuries,  let  him  consult  Auberlen  ("  Di- 
vine Revelation,"  p.  231,  ed.  translation, 
Edinburgh),  where  he  makes  the  synoptic 
Gospels  of  little  account,  and  says  of  the 
Epistle  of  St.  James :    "It  is  very  dry  and 


266  NOTES. 

useless  compared  with  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to 
the  Romans,  ...  for  there  is  nothing  of 
an  evangelical  kind  in  it''  That  great 
doctor  was  the  illustrious  translator  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  thus  the  founder  of  Ger- 
man Literature  in  the  vulgar  tongue ;  but, 
thanks  be  to  God,  the  Anghcan  Restorers 
of  Catholic  orthodoxy  were  not  his  dis- 
ciples. In  his  disputation  at  Oxford  old 
Latimer  refused  to  be  called  a  Lutheran, 
and  though  treating  his  name  respectfully, 
he  said:  **  I  do  not  take  in  hand  here  to 
defend  Luther's  sayings  or  doings."  See 
his  '*  Sermons  and  Remains,"  p.  265,  ed. 
Cambridge,  1845. 

XXII. 

The  outcome  of ''  Higher  Criticism''  (p. 
152). — In  this  form  of  negation  (ignoi^a- 
imis)  there  are  few  who  have  been  so  dar- 
ingly outspoken  as  a  person  to  whom  I 
have  referred  in  a  former  Note  (p.  238), 
who  since  he  uttered  such  Icunguage  about 
the  Holy  Bible,  has  been  elected  to  the 
Presidency  of  Cornell  University.  His 
language  as  reported  is  as  follows :  ''  As- 
tronomy has  dislocated  heaven  and  hell, 
and  sent  the  earth  spinning  round  the  sun. 
Geology  and  biology,  have  revolutionized 
our  views  about  the  formation  of  the  earth  : 


NOTES.  267 

and  now,  last  of  all,  the  terrible  agony  of 
biblical  criticism  is  showing  that  the  Bible 
is  a  collection-  of  books,  written,  for  the 
most  part,  by  we  knozv  not  whom,  at  we 
knoiv  not  ivhat  date,  and  put  together  we 
knozv  not  on  what  principled  As  I  have 
appealed,  in  vain,  to  his  personal  friends 
to  obtain  from  him  a  repudiation  of  this 
statement,  and  as  it  has  been  repeatedly 
republished  and  quoted  as  his,  with  no  sign 
of  retraction,  I  am  forced  reluctantly  to 
suppose  that  the  hundreds  of  both  sexes 
who  repair  to  Cornell  for  education  are  to 
be  thus  leavened  with  unbelief,  unsuspect- 
ingly, perhaps,  by  the  known  views  of  one 
to  whom  they  look  up  with  admiration  as 
their  example  and  pattern.  For  what  is 
**  education  "  in  America  forming  the  young 
of  the  rising  generation  if  such  are  their 
preceptors  ? 

XXIII. 

The  Seventy  (p.  182). — The  honour  paid 
to  the  Version  of  ''the  Seventy,"  by  our 
Lord  and  His  apostles,  justifies  us,  it 
seems  to  me,  in  regarding  their  judgment 
in  such  a  matter  as  this  as  decisive.  Yet, 
were  it  only  that  they  were  witnesses, 
nearer  to  the  source  of  testimony  than  we 
are,  their  judgment  at  least  is  testimony 
against  which  no  modern  critic  can  contend 


268  NOTES. 

with  any  claim  to  superior  knowledge  of 
history,  or  of  a  more  critical  insight  as  to 
language  and  style. 

And  here  I  venture  to  go  a  little  out  of 
my  way  to  direct  attention  to  the  views  of 
evidence  supported  by  Dean  Lyall  in  his 
"  Propaedeia  Prophetica "  (ed.  of  Canon 
Pearson,  London,  1885),  as,  for  example, 
on  p.  34,  where  he  refers  to  scientific  theo- 
ries, probably  correct,  as  to  changes  in  the 
structure  of  this  planet,  which  theories  are 
yet  contrary  to  all  human  experience,  and 
rest  on  no  recorded  testimony  whatever. 
See  also  (p.  297)  why  Scripture  '*  is  not  to 
be  treated  as  other  books." 

XXIV. 

Coimnon  Law  (p.  224). — The  Common 
Law  is  recognized  by  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  and  by  the  Laws  of  the 
State  of  New  York.  In  the  Constitution 
of  the  State  (Art.  xxxv)  it  is  provided  that 
**  such  parts  of  the  Common-Law  of  Eng- 
land and  of  the  Statute- Law  of  England 
as "  (together  with  Colonial  legislation) 
**did  form  the  Law  of  the  Colony  on 
the  19th  day  of  April,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1775,  be  and  continue  the  Law  of 
this  State."  These  provisions  continue  till 
this   day,  and   can    only   be   subverted   by 


NOTES.  269 

the  overthrow  of  our  Hberties  and  institu- 
tions. Similar  provisions  are  general  else- 
where. 

My  references  to  Chancellor  Kent  were 
all  carefully  verified  by  my  young  friend, 
Philip  Sherwood  Smith,  Esq.,  of  Buffalo, 
in  the  law  libraries  to  which  he  has  access. 
He  gives  them  as  follows :  *'  People  vs. 
Ruggles,  8  Johnson,  p.  290,  et  seq.;  "  in- 
cluding '*  Act  concerning  oaths,  Revised 
Statutes,  first  ed.,  vol.  i.,  p.  405";  and 
**Tremaine's  Pleas  of  the  Crown,  p.  226, 
case  of  Taylor." 

The  argument  of  Webster  in  the  famous 
**  Girard  Case  "  greatly  impressed  me  at 
the  time,  and  will  always  be  worth  refer- 
ring to  by  persons  interested  in  the  "  Re- 
ligious Instruction  of  the  Young,  and  the 
Christian  Ministry."  See  works  of  that 
eminent  jurist,  vol.  vi.,  pp.  133-184,  and 
the  judgment  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Pennsylvania  as  therein  cited  (p.  182)  in 
the  case  of  Updegraph,  etc. 

XXV. 

Renan  (p.  232). — If  in  a  former  note  I 
have  unfavourably  contrasted  Sir  Edwin 
Arnold's  second-hand  profaneness  with  that 
of  his  original,  M.  Renan,  I  find  that  Canon 
Pearson  has  very  pointedly  noted  something 


270  NOTES. 

of  the  same  sort  in  others  of  the  same  school. 
He  refers  to  what  is  '*  coarsely  asserted  in 
vernacular  writings,  unrelieved  by  the  dis- 
astrous talent  of  M.  Renan."  See  Pear- 
son's note  on  Dean  Lyall  (lU  supra),  p.  35. 
My  friend  Mr.  Smith  (see  Note  XXIV.) 
calls  my  attention  to  a  recent  work  of 
Renan,  in  which  he  intimates  the  possibiHty 
of  his  return  to  Faith  in  a  very  striking 
passage.  But  since  this  Note  was  in  the 
printer's  hands  the  death  of  this  unfortu- 
nate man  of  genius  (Oct.  2,  1892)  is  an- 
nounced, and  has  profoundly  touched  me. 
On  his  grave  I  drop  a  tear  of  pity  and  of 
painful  grief.  He  was  the  victim  of  a  state 
of  things  he  did  not  create ;  of  a  religion 
which  has  substituted  credulity  for  faith, 
and  of  a  state  of  society  which  has  revolted 
from  it  into  hardened  unbelief.  Leave  him 
to  his  God ;  we  are  not  his  judges.  But, 
out  of  his  blaspheming  lips,  we  may  truly 
afhrm,  has  been  uttered  more  for  Holy 
Writ,  and  to  honour  Christ,  than  has  ever 
proceeded  from  the  hollow  hearts  of  some 
who  profess  to  be  Christ's  ministers. 

XXVI. 

General  Note  (p.  236). — See  these  quo- 
tations from  Lactantius,  in  his  De  Opificio 
Z^^/.'  "  Ante-Nicene  Fathers,"  vol.   vii.  p. 


NOTES.  271 

299.  The  eloquent  text  of  the  original  I 
have  given  in  the  Introductory  Notice  to 
that  volume,  with  some  remarks  on  the 
author.  Nor  can  I  forbear  to  speak  of  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  one  of  the  beloved 
friends  and  associates  of  my  youthful  min- 
istry used  to  quote  it.  I  refer  to  the  Rev. 
Peter  Schermerhorn  Chauncey,  the  rector 
of  Christ  Church,  Hartford.  In  a  copy  of 
the  Prayer-Book  which  he  gave  me,  he  has 
inscribed  it,  and,  long  since,  the  dear  saint 
rested  from  his  labours,  having  more  than 
realized  this  master  passion  of  his  pure  and 
lovely  life  in  his  successful  ministry.  Un- 
derneath his  citation  he  has  added,  from 
Castalio,  this  noble  assurance  of  the  ulti- 
mate triumph  of  the  Gospel:  '*Non  sem- 
per pendebit  inter  latrones  Christus ; 
aliquando     resurget     crucifixa     Veritas." 

Amen. 


DATE  DUE 

i- 

JMN  1  S 

1987 

,«*«.^gi0«B^afe.. 

JUN  1  R  1i 

)89 

JUNl 

)  iflnn 

-^  rt^^U 

1 

J 

i 

\ 

\ 

.Itlh 

1  Jt)  lyd 

4 

lilM   -1 

JUNd 

D\995 

v/ 

CAVLOHO 

BS500  .C87 

Holy  writ  and  modern  thought :  a  review 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00043  6859 


